


How Can You Go On With Such Conviction?

by Jaune_Chat



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Wolverine (Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Identity Porn, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Multi, Past Abuse, Sex Work, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 20:36:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12638712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaune_Chat/pseuds/Jaune_Chat
Summary: Steve Rogers is a professional alpha with an unfortunately famous name.  A veteran who specializes in people with top-secret clearance, he’s been having some particularly interesting clients lately.  This brings him to the attention of SHIELD, who think an alpha like him could be just the person to help a very ill Asset they have.  But Steve has more up his sleeve than just one set of skills when it comes to helping the people he cares for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Brighteyed_Jill for betaing and putting up with my random questions. Thanks to laughtillwecry for the artwork (links coming).

The man in the booth at the end was going to get in trouble. Steve could smell it where he stood, the subtle scent of immanent heat, though twined with some other scent that was mostly masking it. It was not the scent of any pheromone-blocker Steve knew, and he knew nearly all of them, nor was it a scent of ill-health, the body stressing itself too much to try to go into heat when it didn’t have the resources. It was just _different_ , and that was all that was saving the guy in the ball cap and jacket from getting a lot of unwanted attention. Steve had a very acute sense of smell, and exceptional experience in picking out pre-heat odors, but if the man stayed for too much longer, it was going to be obvious to every other alpha in the building. 

So why was the man lingering over tea and staring at his laptop when he should be getting himself set up in a den? Even having crappy wifi at home wasn’t enough of a lure to get an incipient omega out and vulnerable during that time. Even if embarrassment were off the table (the man might have a kink or a fetish for starting heat in public for all Steve knew), the local police wouldn’t be amused. It was illegal in Brazil (and most other countries for that matter) to be in uncontrolled heat in public, and if the cops weren’t around to enforce it, then the man could be in danger from other unscrupulous people.

Steve craned his neck a little, ostensibly looking out the window, and took a glance at what the man was writing down in a notebook. It looked like chemical formulas, along with notations, neat and precise. The man was so absorbed in his project that Steve could have openly stared without him noticing, and Steve did steal the opportunity to at least get a better look. The man looked to be in his early forties, tanned, dark curly hair going gray, doing his best to slouch into oversized clothes and make himself invisible. 

That wasn’t going to work for too much longer. Steve picked up his own cup of coffee and walked over to the man’s booth. This was his job, his responsibility, and he’d be damned if he was going to let anything happen on his watch. What he’d come here for in the first place could wait.

“Hey,” Steve said gently, with a warm smile. “Mind if I sit?”

The man looked up sharply, drawing in on himself, pushing his laptop lid down and flipping his notebook over.

“Um, yeah,” the man said, shaking his head. “Sorry, I was actually just leaving…”

Steve felt relieved; good, hopefully just a gentle nudge and reminder to get home and everything would be fine.

“I wouldn’t have interrupted you, but you’re within a couple hours of starting, and you were concentrating so hard I don’t think you noticed,” Steve said, keep his voice low.

The man blinked. “Starting? Starting what-?” He cut himself off abruptly, and all the blood suddenly drained from his face. “No. Oh no. God, no,” he moaned softly, shoving back his shirt cuff to check a watch strapped to his wrist. A little heart flickered there, some kind of fitness function built into it. The man buried his hand in the skin of his wrist, smelling his pulse point, and his eyes dilated in fear. Sweat sprang up on his temples, and his hands started to shake. The watch beeped softly at him before the man took a few deep breaths, closing his eyes until the beeping stopped. 

“How could you tell?” the man demanded.

“I could smell it,” Steve confessed. “I’m a professional alpha, goes with the territory. I get used to sussing it out.”

“A professional?” The man’s fear eased slightly, but Steve didn’t want to get into a long conversation here. He didn’t know how far away the guy lived, and from the man’s reaction, he definitely wasn’t prepared.

“Is your place far? I just want to be sure you’ll make it home before anything starts,” Steve asked, concerned.

“Not too far. But I can’t…” the man trailed off, rubbing at his wrist, eyes looking haunted. “I thought I wouldn’t. I had an accident.”

“Heat is a jealous bitch, as one of my clients once said to me. It doesn’t give a fat damn about what you’ve been through sometimes.” Steve nodded towards the door. “If you need anything for the next few days, I could pick them up for you, drop them at your place, if you didn’t have anything stocked.”

Any pharmacy or convenience store had heat or rut kits available for sale, and Steve could certainly afford to make sure the man was prepared. He could have offered his services outright, but it was usually better if the potential client did that on his or her own, if they were comfortable with it. For all Steve knew, the man had a spouse, lover, or friend who would be able to help him through an unexpected heat.

“I don’t but-. I just-. I can’t-.” The man looked to be in an agony of uncertainty and fear, and Steve was beginning to realize there was a lot more here than met the eye. This wasn’t just the unpleasant surprise of an unexpected heat, but a real fear he had seen in clients who had been through truly terrible things and couldn’t stand the thought of losing control. “You’re a professional?” the man blurted out desperately.

“My name’s Steve.” He kept his voice as soothing as he could as he pulled out his wallet and fished out his license.

The man grabbed at Steve’s license desperately as soon as he had it out of its slot, holding it up to the light to verify the holographic markings and embedded designs of the International Professional Alphas’ certificate. 

“I’m a five-star flex, A1A, combat trained and experienced, rated for top secret government clearance. I’ve got experience with POWs and PTSD, and I’ve worked with acute heats after dry spells many times,” Steve said without a blush. Something about the man’s stance held more than just fear, it was a fear of himself, of what his body could do without his input. Of what would happen if he lost control, even for a second.

The man looked started by Steve’s bald recitation of his qualifications. “You’re under government contract?” he asked, wary again.

“I have been, but never more than for a short-time instance. I don’t have a retainer with any government. But secrets remain secrets no matter who is telling me,” Steve added, holding the man’s eyes until he understood. He glanced over at the seat opposite the man, then considered the crowd at the diner, and the possibility that the stress was going to accelerate the man’s heat even faster.

“Let’s go somewhere more private,” Steve suggested. The man still hesitated, running his thumb over the marks on the license. The five-star rating meant Steve had a number of certified good reviews from past clients, was current on all of his training, and was in good standing with the IPA. Flex meant he was able to serve any gender he was contracted to service. The clearance rating meant he never divulged anything a client might have spilled while under the influence of heat. And the combat training… Well, if you were going to serve people who were fighting through mental demons while their bodies made hard biological and hormonal demands on them, sometimes you had to be ready to protect yourself from the client lashing out inadvertently. 

Steve’s license declared him to be not only skilled and trustworthy, but that he could take care of himself if anything occurred, from a physically violent flashback to someone trying to take advantage of his client. And right now Steve hoped he was projecting everything he ever learned, because this man looked ready to fly apart and he hadn’t even started quite yet. Steve wanted to _help_ him. The reasons he’d come down here could wait.

After an agonizingly long pause, the man finally nodded. “Okay,” he said very quietly. He swept his notebook and laptop into a bag, then paused at the sight of the long-nursed teacup. He blushed red. “I can’t pay.”

Steve very carefully put his hand over the man’s. “That doesn’t matter.”

The man looked up at him, startled. “But, you can’t-.”

“I can and I will. Let’s get you home.” 

The man snatched up his bag and quickly walked out the door, uttering an almost inaudible sigh of relief, his shoulders losing some of their tension. Steve followed closely, keeping in the man’s line of sight so he would be reassured there was someone there. They paused only once, so Steve could get some supplies from a drug store, before going the last few blocks

The apartment was small and cheap and located at the back of the building. While lacking in a lot, it was private, and that seemed to be the man’s first priority. It was clean, and organized well, likely also to keep things away from prying eyes of the landlord. It was difficult to keep secrets if every surface was strewn with everything you owned.

“Did you want something? Tea?” the man asked, moving to a kettle over a hotplate with jerky motions.

“Your name?” Steve suggested.

The man blushed, and dropped his hands from the kettle. “Bruce.”

“Bruce. Nice to meet you.” Steve sat in a folding chair at the card table near the hot plate as Bruce frantically tried to be busy, putting away his backpack with finicky precision just to kill time. His scent was starting to rise now, and he was maybe an hour away from the full bloom of his heat. The peculiar scent was rising too, but it wasn’t bad, just strange. “How long has it been?”

Bruce pulled off his jacket and hat, put them away, carefully closed the windows and turned on the fans, then finally run out of things to do. He sat down at the other chair, twisting his hands together once before finally speaking. “Over five years.”

Steve’s eyebrows went up, and he was suddenly extremely glad he had the equivalent of three heat kits in his shopping bag. “Your accident?” he prompted gently.

Bruce hesitated another moment, looking as if he were in an agony of indecision. “This could be dangerous for you, deadly dangerous. If you weren’t combat experienced, I wouldn’t be doing this. And if word of me gets out then… People might come after me. And they’ll get hurt.”

“This isn’t the first time I’ve had this speech,” Steve pointed out. He’d worked with people who had the best military or assassin training in the world, sometimes taking care of their heats while they were on assignment and understandably on a hair trigger. Only the fact that they’d made a conscious effort to disarm themselves and Steve was very good at wrestling had kept the experience mutually satisfying, instead of potentially lethal.

“There’s no one out there like me. I’m… dangerous.” Another long pause, and Bruce’s hand clenched into a fist before he forcibly relaxed it. “Did you ever hear about the Culver College Incident?”

Well, that put an entirely new green complexion on things. It was damn lucky that Steve had found him, and not someone with a more violent agenda. 

“The big strong green guy,” Steve said. “The one whom the Army apparently thought was a fantastic idea to try to capture.” His accompanying eyeroll spoke his opinion on that clearly. “That was you?”

Bruce looked surprised, probably at not hearing the word “monster,” at Steve’s casual acceptance of such an outrageous claim. “Yes,” he said, his voice very small.

“I remember watching those clips. And I remember thinking how damn stupid it was to try to capture a guy who was just trying to protect himself and someone he cared about. He could have done a lot more damage, hurt a lot more people, but he didn’t. As soon as the woman who calmed him down was safe, he got the hell out of there. And that time in Harlem? The green guy was the one trying to keep the Abomination down. Not his fault someone dumped the fight in the middle of a city to start with.”

Bruce’s jaw had been sagging steadily throughout Steve’s speech, until he shut it with a snap. 

“Why? No one else sees that, everyone else sees-.”

“What they want to see. I’m not the only one. I’ve had… several clients who have done a lot of what some would consider terrible things. And I’ve heard their reasoning, seen their results, seen how things get better or worse in the world because of someone’s actions. What’s inside you is trying to protect someone who love and then breaking free from someone else who’d use you as a weapon. Then turning around and going back into the fight to save strangers from your evil twin? No, Bruce, you’re a good guy.” Steve stood up, crossed the room and sat down on the edge of Bruce’s bed, putting the supplies within easy reach, and patted the mattress. “Want to come over here?”

Bruce got up in slow motion, and padded over to the bed at a snail’s pace. There were decided beads of sweat on his temples, and the heat scent was rising steadily. The other scent was staying at the same level, which Steve guessed was all to the good. 

“I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s been over five years. I didn’t dare try suppressants; drugs don’t work the same on me anymore. And the last time I even saw Betty, we could barely even kiss…”

“And now? Have you tried anything on your own?” Steve lifted his chin a little, letting his own scent perfume the air. The scent of an alpha nearby was usually soothing to an omega, assuming it was wanted.

“Not really,” Bruce said, looking wretched. “If the… Other Guy shows up, I’m not sure what he’ll do. He understands protecting me, that’s his job, his purpose for existing, but I don’t know if he understands heat. I’m not even sure if he has a presentation, to be honest. It’s not exactly something I can study very easily.”

“Then we’ll go slow. If this Other Guy shows up, I’ll be careful. I have no problem running away if that’d be best for everyone. It took me a long time to learn that, but I have.”

Bruce plucked at the sleeve of his shirt, and then opened up the top two buttons. 

“I know it’s been a while, but we’ll have to get a bit more naked than that,” Steve teased gently, touching Bruce’s hand.

Bruce chuffed out a laugh and shook his head, holding up his hands. They were steady, which seemed to surprise him, and he took the brief surge of confidence to take off his shirt entirely. He was strongly built under the too-large clothing, covered with dark body hair, with faint scars visible on his back. Sweat was starting on his hairline, his heat scent rising. 

Steve took off his own shirt, and Bruce averted his eyes when he realized he was staring. Steve said quietly, “It’s all right.”

Bruce slowly breathed in and out a few times, brought his eyes back up, and reached out to bring Steve close. “Thank you,” he breathed into Steve’s neck. For a long time it was just that, closeness and breathing, not even touching any more than that. Bruce was breathing carefully, very controlled and precise, as he finally pulled back.

“I think,” he said, fitting his words to the same careful rhythm, “that I need to center myself some more.”

Steve waited, looking Bruce over, carefully evaluating his scent. He smelled ready, more than ready, but with the underlying strangeness that had to be Hulk still very present, Steve wasn’t going to push. “Tell me what you need, Bruce.”

“Just… just lie down? When I’m ready, I think this’ll happen fast. Please.” Bruce’s voice sounded steady, and he managed a small, reassuring smile. Steve laid himself down, discarding the rest of his clothes and resting easily as Bruce closed his eyes. He waited patiently as Bruce breathed with measured control, heat pheromones rising to fill the room. Steve let his body respond, sliding a condom over himself as Bruce’s breaths became a little deeper and more ragged.

Even with that warning, it was a surprise when Bruce moved. He abruptly opened his eyes and planted one hand on Steve’s chest, leaning back just enough to line up, and the sheathing himself on Steve to the hilt in a single motion. Steve kept himself from arching up by a thin margin, instead placing soft and loose hands on Bruce’s hips as grounding points. Without breaking the steady metronome of air to and from his lungs, Bruce braced both hands against Steve’s thighs, and slowly, so slowly, began to rise and fall with a subtle tensing of his stomach. 

Steve rubbed slow circles on Bruce’s hips as he let Bruce set the pace, holding himself back with hard-won control. Five years the man had gone without anything, and Steve intended to make every minute worth his while. And when Bruce finally, after a very long stretch of slow riding, dug his hands into Steve’s thighs with more urgency, Steve was relieved to be able to push up into him, locking them together with a firm knot. Bruce whimpered as his body collapsed against Steve’s, a steady spurt from his cock in Steve’s hand between them to ease him through the long, slow orgasm that seemed to have released five years’ worth of tension from his body.

The strange scent that must be the Bruce’s other half still remained at a steady level, and Steve felt secure enough to tuck an arm around Bruce and let the man melt into someone else’s strength. Just for a while.

\--

Bruce smiled softly, and shut the door behind Steve. He’d been very grateful, and Steve had lingered long enough after the worst of heat was over for a shared cup of tea after a quick, mutual shower. Bruce was a hell of a guy, and Steve had made sure to let him know he could call him if, well, this ever happened again. It was a small thing, considering what Bruce had been through, but Steve hoped he’d be able to do more for him someday soon. The sounds of the street, ignored until now, pressed down against Steve in a hum of traffic and conversation, music and shouting. He walked down the narrow staircase and through the small alley, intending to join the flow of people heading to and from the city center. He checked his surroundings surreptitiously as he walked; after Bruce’s perfectly-justified caution (not paranoia, because there really _were_ people out to get him), it more than made sense for him to be certain no one was taking an undo interest in the comings and goings from Bruce’s apartment. There were a few people having beers on a balcony three stories above across the street, a blonde woman cooking dinner one level down as her boyfriend or husband laughingly helped, and some kids kicking around a soccer ball in the alley. 

Normal, everyday life for people who didn’t have to worry about monsters living under their skin, or others who dared to hunt them.

A chill chased over Steve’s skin, roughing up his flesh with goosebumps. 

Steve shook off the feeling. He didn’t have time to deal with that old nightmare now. He joined the flow of humanity in the sunlight, and headed towards the airport. It was time to go home.

\---

“I need this fast. He’ll be back the day after tomorrow, and I have to have this over with by then.”

Steve’s eyebrows went up as the redheaded woman in her black silk robe greeted him rather… brusquely. She eyed him up and down, handed back the license she’d had him slide under the door, and waved him to the bedroom. Supplies were already laid out on the nightstand, and she was waiting impatiently. 

He’d gotten the call less than a day after he’d gotten back from Brazil, and still felt jet-lagged. He hadn’t even had a chance to go home yet, diverting from Houston to Atlanta on an urgent call from the agency. And after spending a week out of touch, he really needed to keep his hours up to maintain his good standing

“Nude. Now,” she said, with an impatient wave of her hand. Steve was stuck somewhere between annoyance and awe, because while he was being ordered around like he was an automaton, she was exuding the sweet, rich scent of heat to a level that meant she was likely on her last nerve. He shed his clothes and laid them on a chair quickly, nodding at her to inspect him. She was a cautious woman, and all the circumstances of her call seemed to indicate that she had more on her agenda than just a quick heat-relief. Steve had had a couple clients who preferred to have their heat-sex with professionals, so that their romantic evenings could be enjoyed freed of the stress and necessity of a hormone storm. He’d been contracted with prostitutes who couldn’t legally afford to have heat with their own clients. And he’d been with more than one undercover operative who was masquerading as a beta, and had to keep up appearances at all costs. This has the feel of the last one, though he’d had no call from the IPA from the various alphabet soup of agencies who needed that kind of service. 

And the smell of it too. As Steve took a few steps closer, the sweet scent of her heat became downright cloying. This was more than just someone in the throes of a hormone surge.

“You can call me Tasha,” she said, dropping her robe on the chair on the opposite side of the bed. She was very pale, very neat, with some carefully hidden strength below her curves and soft skin.

"You're on artificial inducement hormones. Did he dose you?" Steve was hard-pressed to keep his emotions in check. Those kinds of things were supposed to be restricted to doctors, but like a lot of medications, some people used them in all sorts of illegal ways. Tasha's smile went from smooth and professional to more genuine and sad. 

“No.” But there was a wealth of information behind that simple word. Steve repressed a frown; he didn’t like to play twenty questions with his clients, but Tasha seemed like she was waiting for him to put together the pieces. He had a hunch she was undercover, though if it was the police, a government agency, or something else, he wasn’t sure. But she hadn’t dared put her call through her superiors, instead contacting him directly through his file on the IPA website. 

"You dosed yourself." A nod. "To have an excuse to get out." Another nod. 

"I need to be back by tonight, Steve. I don't have much time."

"He won't go after you for going to a professional for your heat?" 

Tasha's whole carriage changed, her hips tilting in a flirt, chest thrusting forward, head tilted to the side, expression very earnest but with her finger at the corner of her mouth. "Oh Jerry, baby, you know I want this to be real!" her voice had slipped into a strong New Jersey accent, her eyes wide and guileless. "Don't want you to see me all messy with heat and then me sayin' dumb stuff and making stupid promises. I always wanna be honest with you baby. You always give it to me so good, and I wanna know that it's YOU I gotta have, not just because my body's goin' all crazy. I wanna be your girl, Jerry, not just a heat-bimbo." Abruptly the ditzy broad vanished, and Tasha sat down, breathing out slowly. 

"You've got it, Tasha," Steve said, and sat down on the bed next to her.

“Good.”

“Tasha-” 

“I don’t have time for nice right now.” That was said quietly, with resignation, as if the time for “nice” had passed her by a long time ago. Steve curled his hands around Tasha’s elbows and lifted her up, setting her on his lap. She didn’t look surprised, just put her hands on his shoulders, readying herself like a longtime dance partner just hearing a familiar melody.

She fit herself around him with a satisfied sigh, very hot and exquisitely tight. Moving with coordinated rhythm she picked up on immediately, she had her and Steve pushing towards orgasm, chasing after his knot with almost tactical precision. He followed her lead as her breathing became more frantic, as she flushed with need, pushing herself harder and faster until Steve helped her pull herself down on his inflating knot. She clamped around him hard enough to make him gasp, frozen together with her for several long moments, her too-sweet scent breaking into something much more subtle.

“Feeling better?” Steve asked, when the first intense minutes had subsided into just the mutual tension of their tie.

“You mean well, Steve.” She laid her head on his chest, breathing already almost back to normal.

“I try.” He heard another question in her simple words, and tried to answer it. “What is it you really need?”

She tilted her face up to arch an eyebrow at him. 

“Unless you need to stay…?”

“Sonya.”

“Sonya for a while yet.”

“You seem like a nice guy, Steve.” 

“I try to be.”

“But Jerry isn’t a nice guy.”

Steve kept his hold her on her, but loosely. She was probably feeling the need for comfort and security, but there was enough tension in her even now for Steve to know she’d hurt him, badly, for cornering her. 

“Is Jerry going to get an uplifting final chapter to his story?”

“Depends on what you mean by uplifting.”

“The one were Sonya walks out of his life, and a week later he gets invited to be a guest of the federal government?”

“So uplifting. Nearly Hallmark.”

“Or maybe more cathartic, where Sonya fights back and beats him?”

“Very Hollywood.”

“Or when Sonya dies and Jerry goes on with his life, but is slowly falls to pieces around him as he’s haunted from beyond the grave?”

“Ah, horror. My favorite professional genre.”

Steve smiled against the back of her neck as she relaxed against him.

“Does he know you went to a professional? Do you want him to know?”

She put her hands on his arms. “He wants to keep Sonya. As far as I implied, I’m riding out heat at my apartment.”

Steve usually tried not to leave marks, but sometimes it was inevitable. She hadn’t asked him to make an extra effort not to.

“Do you want him to take a claim after, or think you’ve found someone else?”

She chuckled and patted his arm. “This’ll be easier if Sonya is dead. It’s a better plot twist with a secret lover. He’ll be so fixated on finding out who it is, he’ll forget what he’s supposed to be guarding against.”

This, then, was something he could do for her. It sounded like Jerry had long-since outlived his usefulness, particularly if she had to manufacture excuses to leave him. “Then, if I may?”

She smiled at his understanding, beckoned him forward, and he laid in bites in just-visible places, soothing the sting after.

\----

Sam looked up from Steve’s couch as Steve walked in, hair still damp from a shower. Darcy had opened a root beer for herself and was sliding a real beer across the table. Sam sat up to catch it, and took a deep, appreciative swallow. He tipped the bottle to Steve, raising an inquisitive eyebrow. 

“Sure, hit me.” Darcy slid another to him, then took her own first swallow, moaning in ecstasy. “Oh God, that hits the spot. Who bruised you up, Steve?”

“Client,” Steve said. He took a frosty gulp of beer, and sighed. “I’m fine, and they will be.”

“Who was it this time?”

“Contract from Vegas, for one. Acrobats, and a couple magicians too.” Steve took the bottle cap in his hand, held it in his palm, closed it, and opened it to reveal an empty hand. Darcy grinned and Sam laughed; more than once a contracted client had found it awkward to be tied with a stranger, and some of them came up with all sorts of things to keep themselves busy. Over the years both Sam and Steve had picked up a grab-bag of party tricks and trivia. “Then I took a few days for myself, but ended up with a few jobs along the way, including that one I got diverted for. Emergency sorts of things.”

“You’ve got some hard cases, man,” Sam said, shaking his head. “Don’t think I could do what you do.”

“I doubt I could handle yours either. I only have so much patience.”

Sam was a fellow professional alpha. The majority of his clients tended to be veterans too, but he worked more with unconfident or maimed omegas and betas, people with less violent cases of PTSD and more insecurity. It took a deft touch to help people get their mojo back as well as their bodies on track, and Sam was one of the best.

“And neither of you could even dare try what I do, so I win. Come on, Daily Show’s about to start.” Darcy was a rare professional omega. She handled cases of rut, which was fairly unusual outside of an established bonding. But when death or separation from one’s partner happened, some alphas went into rut anyways. And professional alphas, with their constant exposure to heat pheromones, went into rut regularly. Darcy kept them on an even keel, which was funny considering anyone who knew her and her sense of humor. 

“We all bow before the master,” Sam and Steve said together, obediently. Darcy grinned and claimed her spot on the sofa as the ads and trailers yammered on and on. Their apartment was fairly nice for New York City, the three of them pooling salaries to get a place that was bigger than a shoebox, with thick enough walls and good enough ventilation to avoid incidents with the neighbors. Steve had been in a few places, pre-Sam and Darcy, where his alpha pheromones had caused some very awkward late-night conversations through closed doors. More than one professional had similar stories.

“Must have been a hell of a client, Steve” Sam said. “You weren’t even in until after 3am.”

“No rest for the wicked,” Steve said. “Just trying to bring some justice to the world.” He rubbed his left arm and sighed. 

“You did pro bono work too on that trip?”

“Pro boner!” Darcy crowed, not even looking away from the TV. Sam didn’t groan anymore at the inevitable joke, but he still smiled.

“Yeah, some.” There were a lot of professional alphas who offered their services free of charge, or at least cheap, for those who needed but couldn’t afford it, and Sam was amongst them. But Steve rarely put his name on the publicly-available lists, instead heading out to places he rarely specified. “There are some people out there who don’t always ask. Besides…”

“You’ve got your other stuff, I know.”

“Yeah. Went to Riverside Retirement Village today, and those guys are always so sweet when I show up in costume. I love talking to them, and it’s easier answering questions behind the mask.”

“You should’ve gone into movies. Seriously, you could have ended up with a nine-movie deal with your face,” Sam teased.

“I’d rather be playing Captain America on my own time, thank you very much,” Steve said, trying to look prim and sending Darcy into a short giggle fit. “You ought to get your own costume, Sam. We can go down to the Veterans’ Home together.”

“I’ve got enough trouble living one life,” Sam said, laughing.

Steve laughed too, but it was short, and he was saved from having to talk more as the show started.

\--

Darcy stroked Steve’s head as they cooled down, tangled together in the spare bedroom from dealing with Steve’s inevitable case of rut from working so many clients back-to-back. “Hey, where’s your brain at, big guy?”

“Hmm?”

“You were calling someone else’s name back there.”

Steve sighed into her hair. “Tell me the date.”

“Friday, June 30th, 2017. Man, jet-lag gets you _hard_.” There wasn’t even a joke behind her words, and Steve just sighed.

Steve kissed her throat softly, then sat up. “I’m okay now.”

“You go really far away when we do this, Steve. I almost feel like I have to bring breadcrumbs to help you find your way back.”

“Sometimes it’s just a lot. It’s a big load and everything that’s happened comes back at you and you wonder if it was all worth it.”

“Hmm, dunno what ghosts you’re chasing but…” She pulled back and gave him and ample view of her charms. “Was I worth it?”

“Yeah, Darcy, you are.”


	2. Chapter 2

_Three months later_

Steve was used to coming to clients discretely, when asked. He’d taken a lot of taxis to a lot of no-tell heat motels. But this was the first time he’d been greeted at the airport with a limo, and driven by a closed-mouthed employee of his client right to the door of his client’s mansion. But when your client was the miraculously-alive and recently found Tony Stark, who still had more money than most countries despite his abrupt one-eighty on weapons’ manufacture, a limo was the least of things to worry about.

He was met at the door by a taut and poised beta, Tony’s assistant Pepper Potts. She whirled him through a flurry of electronic paperwork with an efficiency that left him gasping, and then finally put her tablet down to look him straight in the eyes.

“Mr. Rogers, I had to push Tony to get help. And he agreed, but if anything goes wrong, that’s going to send him to seal himself inside his workshop again.” Her hands were clasped together in a deceptively loose clasp, white at the knuckles.

“Miss Potts, I’ll do everything I can. I’ve handled…” he thought back to Bruce and Natasha, the most recent complications he’d had, for good reason, “some big problems.”

“I know. Your reputation is impeccable, and from what your clients say-.” Ms. Potts stopped herself and unclasped her hands to rub at her fingers. “I think he really needs you.”

Steve followed her into the depths of the house, past artwork that he itched to examine more closely, and architecture and a view that clearly bespoke the wealth of the Stark name. Not that he’d expected any less. Ms. Potts left him at the bedroom door, retreating back towards the brighter front room, leaving him alone in front of the door. He reached out to the doorknob, only for it to swing open of its own accord.

“Sir,” a British-accenting electronic voice said from a hidden speaker, “the alpha Ms. Potts hired is here. His name is Steve Grant Rogers.”

He stepped inside the cavernous room, dimly lit with subtle mood lightning, plus the pale blue glow of the arc reactor. The circle of lights drew Steve to where Tony Stark was sitting on the edge of the bed, knees spread, head up, staring at him with incredulity that belied the rich, sweet scent of heat.

“Steven Grant Rogers. For real?” Tony asked.

“Yeah, I know. I get it all the time.”

“Were your parents big fans or…?”

“Oh, Mom wasn’t thinking about my name being famous when she had me. And by now I’m used to it. I’ve got a costume. I go to children’s wards in hospitals, or visit veterans, retirees, sometimes do some PSAs. I try to do what I can. I respect what Captain America stands for.”

“It’s kind of uncanny how much you look like him,” Tony said, staring.

“It went to the exhibit at the Smithsonian when they opened it. _Really_ uncanny to see your own face on all of those displays. I guess you know what that feels like.”

“Lil’ old me?” Tony said, fluttering his eyelashes.

“Don’t you have a sculpture in Madame Tussads? I’m pretty sure I’ve seen pictures.”

“The nice ones of me with my arms around me, or the ones with me molesting myself?”

Steve smiled but didn’t answer.

“Right, both.”

Steve nodded at the bed, and Tony waved at him to sit, hands touching his knees, then folding together, as if uncertain about where to settle.

“This is probably a bad idea,” Tony said, bouncing to his feet.

“I think getting help for yourself is always a good idea,” Steve said quietly.

“No, not this--. Believe me, I know I’m going to need someone who I can slap about six NDAs on and you come highly recommended and seem professional as hell from your record. I’m already seeing someone to help get the nightmares down to a reasonable volume. And getting my body back on track’s going to be a huge part of that, I was told.” Tony took a breath, held it, then added quickly, “But you look like _him_.”

“I can’t help that, Tony.”

“Dad went looking for him, after he went down in the war. Forgot about me sometimes.” Tony had gone distant, looking inside himself.

“He shouldn’t have done that, Tony. That’s a hell of a thing to put on a kid.” And Steve meant that, every single word.

Tony looked haunted, staring into middle distance, before shaking himself back to reality.

“Fuck… you said you do those health PSAs too, don’t you?”

“Better me locking up Captain America’s image for wholesome associations than some plagiarizing jerk just trying to use his image for something hateful.”

“God. I’m plagued with Steve Rogers.” 

Steve just smiled sadly and took a towel from his bag, putting it beside him on the bed and patting it in invitation. “You’re so worked up you’re very close to starting,” he warned.

Tony sat, hands fluttering uncertainly for a moment before gripping his knees. He immediately let go, and smoothed over the front of his shirt, shadowing the light on his chest momentarily. That was the reason Steve was here, or at least the representation for it. Four months ago, Tony Stark had gone missing and was presumed dead. One month ago, he’d been found in the desert after a hellish captivity. And now, right now, his body was trying to make up for a lot of stress in a very inconvenient way. That was when Pepper Potts had made a call to the IPA, and they’d recommended Steve.

“Look, don’t touch… don’t touch the arc reactor. It still hurts. I think it’s always going to hurt, and that’s just going to yank me right out of the mood if you press on that. No acrobatics, all right? Or else I don’t think I’m going to be able to catch my breath.”

“Got it,” Steve said.

“I mean, I was okay with Pepper touching it and I’ll probably be fine I think, but… Fuck, this used to be easier.”

“Just be charming and bam, instant bed buddy?”

Tony laughed shortly. “Bed buddy, yes. Not a heat buddy.”

“You kept yourself suppressed?”

“Azure shots four times a year,” Tony confirmed, naming the most popular suppressant shot. “Two scheduled heats a year. Thank fuck I’d had a shot before…”

“Right. Though in stressful situations, sometimes the body tends to avoid heat.”

“That’s a teeny, tiny comfort.”

“Tony…” Steve leaned in, letting his shirt gape enough to waft his scent over in a calming gesture. Tony’s eyes dilated slightly, and he took a deliberate breath in and out. “We can do this however you want. I’ll go as slow as you need.”

“Slow. Really slow. Been a while since I mounted this horse,” he said, with a hint of his famous cocky grin. Steve smiled and leaned forward a little, ready to let Tony take the first move.

Tony tapped his hands on the bed, then toyed with the hem of his shirt as Steve slowly got himself ready. Eventually he dropped the shirt hem in favor of ridding himself of his pants. Underneath, Tony’s boxer briefs were silky, red, and very brief indeed. “Right, how do you want me?” he asked, tossing his head like he was being filmed by the paparazzi.

“How do _you_ want _me?_ ” Steve countered, a hair more serious. He could take the lead if Tony really wanted it, but every bit of instinct and experience said Tony wanted more than to be told what to do, even in heat.

“In uniform, so I can fulfill some major adolescent spank-bank fantasies oh God what is my mouth doing? Don’t even listen to me; I’m on all sorts of edges.”

Steve leaned into Tony’s space slowly, nude now from his preparations, and was about to speak when Tony darted in for a kiss, a desperate, passionate kiss that made Steve’s ears hot. When Tony pulled back, he looked both embarrassed and smug at the same time, and then relieved when Steve followed up with a soft kiss in return.

“Some of those edges feeling less sharp?”

“Maybe,” Tony said coyly. Steve could see the shiny, confident Stark showmanship coming to the fore in Tony’s body language. As entertaining as that would undoubtedly be, Tony didn’t need to spend the energy in in putting on a display, something he’d have to do over and over again in the future. He didn’t, shouldn’t have to do that with Steve. Not now.

“Hey, you don’t have to impress me. I’m not filming you,” Steve said.

“But I like being impressive,” Tony said, flashing a grin.

“You already are, Tony. You always have been.”

“What, even now, when I’m a poster child for being off my head? Check social media, I’ve got a few feeds dedicated to my questionable mental state,” Tony said, sighing almost imperceptibly.

“You don’t need me to tell you you know that’s not true.”

Tony dropped most of the façade, and straddled Steve’s lap without another word. “You sound like him too. That sounds like something he would say.”

“Is that bad?” Steve asked, hands on Tony’s hips, loose and easy. Their lips were a breath apart.

“No.” A pause, a shift, and Steve could feel Tony’s wetness, see his eagerness. “God, no.”

“I want you to feel right again in your own body,” Steve said, catching Tony’s eyes. Tony let his head fall back, and briefly laid his hand over the arc reactor in his chest. He looked more relaxed now, no longer fighting his heat or trying to put on a mask. 

“Okay, Romeo, you’ve got me.” Tony shifted, tugged, and his briefs, well, more panties than briefs, just fell away in fluttering scraps. With a deep breath, Tony also took his shirt off, exposing the circle of metal and lights, and the scars that pitted the flesh around it. This was far more Sam’s wheelhouse than Steve’s, helping omegas who had taken bad physical injuries, but Steve had been the one to go to the extra lengths necessary to get his high-level clearance, and all the pains that brought. But both of them had swapped what stories they could, within the constraints of their clients’ privacy, just in case. All knowledge was useful, and Steve was never adverse to learning.

Tony needed the best, with all that he’d been through. With great care for his cyborged chest, Steve murmured a quick question, got Tony’s affirmative, and sheathed himself slow inside Tony’s ready body. Tony mostly kept his eyes shut as their hips moved together in easy rhythm, occasionally stealing looks at Steve, but mostly concentrating on his own body. Instead of his hyperverbal razzle-dazzle, Ton was quiet except for a few soft comments. “Yeah.” “Harder.” “Slower.” “Fuck! Like that.” This felt very personal, like what Tony wanted when he was alone. Steve didn’t resent the relative isolation. Tony had been forced to live with his captors every moment of his captivity – to be alone in a safe space was the height of luxury right now

It touched Steve to see Tony letting himself go like that. When their climax came, it was Steve first, hands on Tony’s thighs, Tony’s hand on his own cock, encouraging himself to follow a few moments later. He squirmed down to take as much of Steve as he could with a sigh of satisfaction, and leaned forward to rest on Steve’s shoulder.

“Yeah, you’re all right,” Tony said into his skin.

“Even if I’m Steve Rogers?”

Tony laughed. “Can’t help that, Cap.”

Steve didn’t even bother to protest the nickname.

\--

_Four months later_

“Steve? I think I’ve got a good problem for you,” Darcy said, flopping down across his and Sam’s laps on the sofa without so much as a by-your-leave. Sam reflexively held his drink up as she made her landing, then proceeded to use her knee as a coaster. Both of them ignored each other as Darcy talked to Steve.

“A good problem?” Steve asked, raising an eyebrow. Darcy nodded, tossing her hair back over her shoulder. 

“You’ve got the top-secret agent clearance, right?”

“Um… more or less,” he said, knowing better than getting into battles of semantics with Darcy.

“Look, I’ve got my best girlfriend from college, fellow omega, got herself a boyfriend who’s just out of this world, and they need a little, you know, _instruction_ ,” she said, with some evocatively graphic gestures that had Sam snickering even as he supposedly looked straight ahead at the news on screen. 

“…how did anyone who’s ever known you ever not know everything there was to know about the birds and the bees by the time they’d spent a week with you?” Steve asked.

Darcy laughed. “Jane’s not as high-drive as me-.”

“Nobody is,” Sam muttered, and she tried to kick him in the side. He ticked her feet in revenge. She squirmed enough to get him to nearly upset his drink, and he stopped.

“It’s her boyfriend. Super-nice guy, don’t get me wrong, he’s just a little different. Or a lot. But mostly in a good way? Anywho, you need some clearance or other to really get the deets, so that’s why I thought of you. You’ve done show-and-tells before, right?”

Sam guffawed outright, and Steve rubbed the back of his neck and tried not to blush. “Yes, a few times.” 

“Aw, Stevie, don’t be shy! You’ve got a lot to show!”

Sam lost it, slamming his drink down on the table and _howling_ into Darcy’s legs as she patted the top of Steve’s head.

At that point, Steve would have accepted her job suggestion no matter what, just to avoid having a repeat conversation at any point in time. 

\--

Steve wasn’t used to feeling small, not in a long time. Certainly he’d met guys, and some gals, who were bigger than him, but it was uncommon. To open a door and have to look up, even slightly, was a pleasant shock. Particularly because his work order had been for one Jane Foster, whom he’d FaceTimed not ten minutes ago.

“Ah, welcome. Come in! You are the alpha?”

The man was tall, broad, very nicely muscled under a thin robe, with a mane of long blond hair, a short beard, and million-watt smile.

“That’s me,” Steve said, offering a hand and having his own met and matched by the man’s calloused mitt. “Steve Rogers, from IPA.”

“I am Thor Odinsson, and my lady Jane would like me to conduct you to the bedroom,” he said, sweeping his arm in towards the depths of the house. Steve felt the sudden need to bow. Thor was so curiously formal even while not seeming to be. Up close, Thor smelled like a summer evening after a rainstorm, lightning still flickering. He had no scent otherwise, no musky alpha or rich omega or even the clean spring morning of a beta.

That bore out what Dr. Foster had told him over the secure line. He supposed he was used to a lot of oddity in his line of work, but a man from another world? That was new. At least that sounded somewhat better than “alien.” Even so, Jane and Thor had been together for nearly a year, and apparently intimate, so he couldn’t be so very different from human. Just different enough for her to request a little professional help that had apparently required someone with Steve’s clearance to handle.

Steve made a very brief detour to get out of his street clothes and into a working robe, then joined the two lovers in the bedroom. Jane Foster was in the early stages of heat by her scent, her temples damp, already clad in a silk robe as her body became more sensitive. She blushed when she saw him, and he just gave her a reassuring smile.

“Jane,” Thor said, urging Steve forward with a hand on his back, “this is Steve.”

He successfully restrained the urge to bow, and instead hugged her to share scent. Thor didn’t give any little signs of alpha territoriality, no little growls or excessive looming, no immediate counter-scenting. Mostly he seemed pleased that Steve was being kind, here to give Jane what she needed. Steve expected at least a frown; having someone else in your bedroom was usually awkward, unless that was your thing. Their relationship must had been ironclad. Thor just sat down on Jane’s other side and smiled when she took his hand.

“Jane already told me what you had communicated about. We have attempted a heat coupling once before,” Thor said, “And it was a bit… disastrous.” 

“What about your couplings other times? Everything all right there?” 

“Very!” Jane said quickly and enthusiastically. Thor grinned.

“Indeed, all sex outside of heat is delightful, but I would not see my lady unsatisfied and unhappy.”

“Could I get more details?” Steve asked delicately.

“I just couldn’t…” Jane made a few evocative gestures.

“Climax,” Thor supplied helpfully. “I attempted all she asked of me.”

“And more! But I just…” She sighed in frustration. “We did knot simulation as best we could but it still didn’t really work.”

“It seems I am slightly different than your alphas on this world.”

“I showed him some anatomy pictures and sex-ed lectures, and some, um, porn that wasn’t too inaccurate, but there’s not too many people I can talk to without SHIELD getting mad,” Jane said.

“Well…” Steve started, and Thor interrupted him.

“I shall show you,” Thor said, and casually opened his robe. Well. Wow. Jane was nodding proudly at Steve’s reaction. If Steve hadn’t been here professionally, and Thor wasn’t already attached… He mentally shook his head and took a closer look. Thor looked healthy, if very generously endowed, but his shaft was entirely smooth and straight, without the vestigial knot that even betas had while soft.

Steve nodded, trying to look businesslike, and opened his own robe, taking in Jane’s scent as he did so, and felt himself fill out. Thor looked at him thoughtfully, as Jane snuck looks a little more surreptitiously. 

“May I?”

“Certainly.”

Thor held him loosely, exploring the slightly filled knot with intense curiosity. It wasn’t the hesitancy Steve had had with the few virgin clients he’d had, nor was it the deliberate titillation of a few who were laboring under the misconception that a professional alpha was the same as a sex worker, and had wanted to see him hot and bothered. There was a lot of overlap between the professions, but Steve was never being hired to fulfill a fantasy – he was there for medical and therapeutic reasons. Not that both professions didn’t swap a lot of notes, but they worked opposite sides of a very thin line. By law, sex workers were required to refuse clients in heat or rut, and professionals, unless educating, never were contracted with someone who _wasn’t_ in heat or rut. People got unreasonable in heat and rut, and you had to be able to negotiate those demands with the same care a sex worker negotiated someone’s fantasies.

Thor however, just looked slightly scientific as he weighed and observed and measured.

“You are quite sensitive at the knot?” he asked.

“Very,” Steve said, and Thor moved his hand away. He took a few seconds to calm down, and saw that Jane was looking rather appreciative, in a somewhat detached, “Well, isn’t _that_ interesting” sort of way. “It does get bigger and firmer closer to climax, then stays firm inside the omega from anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour, depending on the couple in question. Some alphas soften earlier or later, some omegas stop clamping down earlier or later.”

“Ah. Then when I tried a similar effect with my fingers?” Thor asked, looking at Jane.

“Close!” Jane said quickly, and blushed. “But it was very awkward to hold in place.”

“All right, then. I might have a solution for that. Jane, what about alpha hormones? What’s your receptivity?”

“My doctor said I have a very low receptivity. That was extra useful in college when some people were strutting around like peacocks. It smells nice, but I don’t _need_ it. A little alpha air freshener, and I’m good,” she said.

“Then I definitely have something to help.” Steve closed his robe regretfully. He might have liked to indulge him, her, or both, but that wasn’t what was needed here. Steve delved into a bag he’d brought with him, and came out with a case. He clicked it open to reveal a couple dozen orbs with holes in them, in colors ranging from various skin tones to bright rainbow shades. “Cock knots,” he explained. Jane made a little nod of recognition and her eyes widened with excitement. “You fit them over your own knot, or where it should be. Trans alphas use them, or people who want bigger knots or need them for their partners.” Thor grinned happily. Steve eyed Thor, then took out the blue one, which was reasonably proportioned for him, and was actually likely to fit the man’s equipment. Thor took it, looking it over, then flicked it open.

“Just fit it on near the base, right there! Perfect. It should stay until you unsnap it. Don’t wear it for more than three hours, and not when you’re not erect. And don’t use it for anal or oral sex, because that’s a tearing or choking hazard. Clean it with mild soap and water when you’re done. I’ve just cleaned these, so you are good to go.”

Jane looked very eager, and her scent was rising sharply. Steve stood, putting the case away. “I’ll see myself out?”

“Wait!” Jane said. “In case something… Will you stay in case we have other questions?”

“Indeed.” Thor waved Steve back to the chair next to the bed. Well, this wasn’t unheard of, but Steve hadn’t done it very often. He checked with both of them, and Jane nodded. 

“Please!”

Steve settled his robe around himself and sat down, trying to look cool and collected. These two were incredibly sweet, but Darcy still owed him, big time. Despite this being part of his job, it was never less than awkward, for him if no one else.

Thor picked up Jane in a sweetly romantic move, setting her down on the bed and opening her robe with reverence, stopping often for kisses. Jane matched him move for move, taking every opportunity of a kiss to tug at his robe until he was just as naked as she. Her hands buried themselves in his hair as he moved down her body, and Thor took a long time to worship every part of her. When he reached the juncture of her thighs, Jane was tilting her hips up in an unsubtle hint, and Thor walked his fingers up her body to her mouth in response. She took them in enthusiastically, then suddenly looked at Steve and blushed furiously. He glanced away, angling his arm to hide his erection as much as possible (he was a professional alpha next to a very in-heat omega; normally everything south of the border was on the clock in similar circumstances, and the response was hard to shake), and she tried to regain her aplomb as she laved her tongue over Thor’s fingers to get them wet. He trailed them down her body again, and Jane cried out as he pushed them inside her, smiling at her reaction. 

Thor pulled his hands back with reluctance, and went to push his cock into Jane, who was clearly more than ready. He paused, making Jane glare at both of them and whine in the back of her throat. Steve winced; she sounded like Darcy in a temper.

“I don’t wish to hurt you,” Thor said, one hand on his impressively-sized equipment, tenderly stroking her side with the other. And yes, under other circumstances Steve might have counseled some caution and longer foreplay, except if Jane was entirely happy with their sex life outside of heat, then she was about as delicate as tempered steel. 

“I’ll be fine! Thor, please,” she said. Thor looked to Steve, his hot blue gaze carrying enough raw charisma to make Steve swallow and shift his hips. Not that Thor didn’t believe his girlfriend, but only that they’d failed in this endeavor before and this time he wanted this to be perfect. Steve knew that drive for perfection anywhere.

“Trust us, she’ll be great,” Steve said reassuringly.

Thor, bless him, didn’t hesitate long. “All at once, or slowly?” Jane _growled_ in impatience.

“Slowly at first,” Steve recommended, and had Jane’s glare turned on him. He grimaced sympathetically. The glaring stopped when Thor’s low slow slide was capped off by careful push of the artificial knot inside her. She curled her arms and legs around him, every line of her claiming possession. Thor rocked inside the cradle of her thighs, working the knot inside her as Steve gave some evocatively graphic pantomimes as silent instruction. Or “sex charades” as Darcy called them.

Jane cried out finally as her body seized in pleasure long unsatisfied, holding on like she’d never let go. 

“Thor, oh God, that was perfect.” She kissed him over and over. Thor looked simultaneously stunned and very satisfied with everything, and gave Steve a look of deep gratitude as he gathered up his lady to enjoy the closeness of her heat.

Steve decided, as he got dressed and showed himself out, that this had been one of his better clients after all.

But Darcy still owed him. Big time.


	3. Chapter 3

_Two months later_

This was probably the first time Steve’s stint in the military had been so crucial to a client. SHIELD had brought him here in a stealth plane, with a helmet and a bulletproof vest. To even get that seat, he’d had a conversation with Director Fury himself.

“I’ve got a shooter in a position to take out a target. He’s been there a week, and he absolutely cannot leave. And he’s due for heat. Normally he’d just take a temporary suppressant, but he’s done that three times already in the past year, and his doctor won’t approve a fourth.”

“His body won’t tolerate a fourth,” Steve said, knowing he wasn’t correcting Fury, but showing his knowledge. “He’s going to go into heat regardless. It might be shorter, but it’s going to be very intense. He doesn’t have a low drive, I take it.”

“No. He’s normal enough in that regard, and from what he’s told his CO, he’s going to be too compromised to guarantee a good shot. But he can’t leave. Our window is set, and I don’t have anyone else I can get into position without blowing someone’s cover. So you’ll need to go in. Will that be a problem?”

“No, sir.”

The agent in charge, Coulson, had been the one to accompany him on the plane. Apparently he was a huge fan of Captain America, and Steve had spent part of the flight signing vintage trading cards with Cap’s mug on them. Aside from that moment of intense geeking out, Coulson had been a consummate professional. He got them into the city without incident and helped Steve get up into the building opposite the target, into Barton’s nest. Inside the empty floor of offices was one with a thin mattress, supplies of food and water, a corner set aside for the necessities of a long stakeout in the form of sealed bottles and a few empty ones. The knock before they’d come in had been coded, and the call before Coulson had even taken Steve up the stairs had been secured, so Barton didn’t even turn his head or acknowledge them, just kept at the scope of his sniper rifle.

“Barton, this is Steve Rogers.”

From here, Clint Barton had the delicious ripe scent of an omega on the verge of a heavy heat, but he wasn’t moving an inch. Clint grunted in acknowledgement and Coulson backed out of the room. Steve moved closer, unbuttoning his pants but keeping everything else on.

“Thought you’d have a worn a bulletproof cup,” Clint said, eyes flicking up to a mirror he’d rigged on the wall so he could look behind him.

“They don’t make ‘em big enough,” Steve said, and Clint snorted in amusement.

“Nice. Look, I have a nasty arms dealer who also has illegal habits that include ‘what the fuck?’, ‘oh hell, no,’ and ‘I’m gonna kill this fucker with my bare hands.’ He’s coming out of this building sometime soon, going from his pleasure fortress down there to tank-like armored convoy and then back to his castle-like remote estate, so I have a skinny window to get him and his top lieutenants. My buddies in the other perches will take care of his security so I have time to erase my tracks, but I’m still waiting for word from my inside guy. She’s trying to send him out. He’s been known to spend weeks on end in there. So while I would really love to make this a little more fun for both of us, right now I need your eyes and a fast, hard knot.”

“As long as you don’t kick me out in the morning,” Steve said, moving closer and going to his knees, shoving his pants down and quickly slipping on a condom. “Are you covered for as long as this’ll take?”

“Yeah. Fuck, you smell good. Hang on a sec. Morse, Hunter, Ward, you’re on watch for…”

“Five,” Steve supplied quickly. There was a time for foreplay, like there had been with Bruce, and there was a time to get right down to business.

“Five minutes.”

There was a pause, and Clint snorted at something they said. Steve could barely make it out, probably some good-natured mockery about Barton’s bedroom stamina.

“Hopefully I get a chance to prove them wrong.” Barton put his gun down, sighed, and relaxed. “Yeah, Steve. Go.”

Steve pulled Clint’s pants down, positioned himself, held onto Clint’s hip with one hand, and thrust in to the hilt in a single motion. Clint shouted into the stock of his gun underneath him, but put one hand back over Steve’s to reassure him that all was well. Steve patted him on the hip, and slipped his hand underneath to find Clint’s cock. And then he pulled out all the stops, using every bit of experience to find Clint’s best angle and pace within the shortest amount of time, using sharp shallow thrusts to keep Clint moaning and gasping, working Clint’s cock in concert. He was wonderfully slick and beautifully responsive, and Steve muffled his own groan into Clint’s back as Clint came over his hand. Clint body’s tightened around Steve’s as his knot expanded, a fantastic sensation he wanted to savor as they both finally relaxed, breathing slowing into a much calmer pace. Clint’s whole frame seemed to unfurl as the initial quenching of his heat eased him down, and he sighed luxuriously before speaking.

“Jesus, that was the best five minutes of my fucking _life_.”

“I’m very flattered.”

“Barton, you have thirty seconds,” came a female voice over Barton’s earbud, audible to Steve because they were so close.

“Every fucking time, Nat,” Clint muttered. He snatched up his gun and glanced back at Steve. “Brace me, I’m going to have to do this kneeling.” Steve slung his arms around Clint’s middle and held firm as Barton tracked something down below on the sidewalk through his scope. “Morse, Hunter, Ward, ready.”

Affirmatives chorused. A woman from a store moved into position. “I’m clear, all targets in the lobby, moving out.”

“Car’s coming up.”

“Awning’s out.”

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Clint snarled. “Shot?”

“No.”

“No.”

“No.”

“Steve, on your back, head towards the window,” Clint said sharply.

Taking Clint with him, Steve did as he was bade and rolled over, and nearly went cross-eyed from ecstasy when Clint twisted a hundred and eighty degrees with an acrobat’s grace. A shudder went through him, and Steve felt Clint clamping down harder, but Clint never stopped moving. He set down the gun and from under a blanket snatched up a high-tech-looking bow and quiver of arrows. He put one on the string and held two more, leaning forward and focusing fiercely on something below. Steve used an arm to brace Clint in position, but otherwise held himself completely still. 

“I have primary shot. On my mark. Go.” Clint fired all three arrows so fast Steve barely had time to blink. He craned his head back to see three holes through the awning, and a body on the sidewalk with arrows in each eye and another in the mouth. Several more bodies joined it, decorated with headshots.

“Target down!” came the chorus over the earpiece. 

“Nat, are we clear?”

“Clear!”

“Clean-up. Now.”

Clint pressed a button on his’s bows grip, and his arrows exploded, neatly hiding exactly what had been done to the bodies and giving everyone in the area something else to think about.

“Coulson, I need clean-up at my location.”

“Ex-fil, is waiting to go now.”

“Steve, you gotta carry me down, buddy.”

“No problem.” It was awkward, but with Clint clinging to his neck and his legs around Steve’s waist, bow and quiver still on him, it was possible. Steve gripped him with one hand, and the belt of his pants with the other, because he couldn’t take the time to do anything else. Steve took the stairs as quickly as he could, both of their vests rubbing together, Clint clenching around him every other step, threatening to send him to his knees. Finally they briefly emerged into daylight, Coulson ushering them into the big bench backseat of a van. They drove away in the confusion as police and ambulances came screaming to the scene of the explosion. Clint didn’t relax his grip or vigil until Coulson tapped his ear and said, “We’re clear, the others are out, sites are scrubbed.”

Then Clint all but collapsed against Steve, body easing onto Steve’s knot, breath coming out in a rush of satisfaction and relief. 

“Good job, Barton,” Coulson said, and Clint just nodded. Steve could see how wired and on-edge he had ben, and rolled his hips a little, giving Clint a soothing pulse of pleasure.

“That was amazing,” he said, meaning it.

“You too. Nat said you were good.” Clint rolled his hips in perfect counterpoint to Steve, and he bit back a groan.

“Barton,” Coulson said, a hint of a warning in his tone.

“You guys kept me out there for _weeks_ after I should have had a break. I don’t care if I get slick on the seats right now. Get us back to someplace with a bedroom so Steve can fuck the stupid out of me, and then we can all go out for a beer.”

“…Fine.”

“Steve, that includes you,” Clint said firmly.

“I don’t-.”

“Professional protocol can take a hike. You helped take down a very bad guy, and stop a lot of misery and pain because of it. You get to celebrate with a beer.”

“How could I refuse?”

After two hours of very intense knotting sex in a scent-blocked room in a distant safehouse, a one-hour power nap, and a quick shower, Clint nearly dragged Steve to a bar where the rest of his team showed up soon after. With bottles on the table and more on the way, Clint went around to introduce everyone.

“Natasha, I think you know,” Clint said.

“Intimately,” she said without a blush. Utterly unsurprisingly, Clint’s “inside man” was the same Natasha who’d contracted Steve upon his return from his Brazillian vacation nearly a year ago.

“I hope Jerry and Sonya are in a good place,” Steve said, and she smirked.

“Exactly where they’re supposed to be,” she said, clinking her bottle with his.

“Those two are Bobbi and Lance,” Clint said. Those two had been quipping at each other when they walked in. Bobbi had been one of the people in the crowd during the op, using her looks and blonde hair to fit in with the populace until it had been time to go to work. No longer working, Steve could see she was just as graceful and strong as Natasha, with an American accent he rather thought was real. Lance was cut more from a soldier’s cloth, athletic and short-haired, dark stubble making him look like he’d been spending nearly as much time in his sniper’s perch as Clint had. He was British from his speech, and from the way he and Bobbi kept bouncing off each other, committed. 

“And that’s Grant.” He was younger than the others, with a face that could have been used for a monument, darkly handsome with a snipers’ long gaze. He’d been quiet most of the time, likely new to the team.

Clint was telling the others about Steve’s “heroic” actions, while Steve just shook his head and savored the bitter bite of his beer.

“…picked the exact wrong time, Nat, so Steve just kept doing his thing and braced me so I could do mine.”

Bobbi and Lance were laughing, and even the dour Ward had cracked a smile. Natasha raised her glass to clink bottles with the others as Clint said, “Chalk another one up for the good guys.” After a round of contemplative swallows, Ward turned his attention to Steve.

“You get dragged out for this kind of thing a lot? Or did Barton beg for it?” he asked.

Bobbi gasped in mock-shock as Lance thumped his bottle with Ward in appreciation for the zinger. Steve grinned in the face of Ward’s jab – the kid had moxie. “No often on active missions, but a lot of times before or after,” he explained.

Clint was still in a post-heat flood of endorphins, and feeling very inclined to be indulgent. Otherwise Steve was certain Ward would have been sporting some sort of projectile in a very embarrassing place in no time at all.

“Post-op work?” Ward pressed.

“Yeah, especially if people need someone with-.”

“A _huge_ -,” Lance started, and Bobbi shut him up by pushing his beer into his mouth.

“-Good reflexes,” Steve finished smoothly. Ward looked thoughtful, and Steve wondered if he knew someone who needed a professional’s services. Ward was definitely an alpha, and, if Steve’s observations of who Ward was looking at in the bar were right, likely not someone who needed someone in Steve’s line of work. But he could have a friend, a squad-mate… 

“That does it,” Clint said, giving everyone at the table a shit-eating grin. He walked over to the music system, made a selection, and then bopped back to the table with the opening notes of Pat Benatar’s “Love Is A Battlefield.” Natasha groaned, and the table moved on to conversation of everyone’s questionable musical choices. Ignoring the main thread of the discussion, Ward kept questioning Steve.

“They fly you out here on a transport?”

“Had to, it was the only thing going. I already served my time, so I know the drill. I’ve flown in worse.”

“Fury must have moved heaven and earth to get you here this fast.”

“Just one plane. He said I was needed, so here I am.”

“Your job must pay better than this, I bet,” he said, waving vaguely to indicate the team.

Steve chuckled. Even a specialist’s pay, like Ward, wouldn’t get you tropical vacations and fancy cars, but then again, neither would Steve’s, not with his expenses. 

“Somewhat. I don’t get shot at, at least. I do some work gratis, especially for vets.”

“You mean…” Clint said, grinning widely, and Steve mentally begged for him not to finish that sentence. “Pro boner?”

In vain, it seemed.

The table groaned or laughed according to how many beers they’d downed, Bobbi and Lance breaking into nearly identical giggles. Even Ward was grinning.

“How long have you two been married?” Steve demanded of Bobbi and Lance, drawing another laugh from them.

“One year and counting,” Lance said proudly.

“You’re too much alike.”

“Don’t we know it,” Bobbi said, arm slung around Lance.

Steve smiled as the quips and stories flowed around the table, putting in a word or two where he could. It felt good being part of a team again, drinking in a bar after a mission, having made the world just that much better, brighter, at least for a while.

\--

_Two weeks later_

Secretary Pierce initially regarded Steve with skepticism, then smiled, relaxing. He’d liked what he’d heard from Fury, apparently. “I believe you will find this assignment particularly challenging, Mr. Rogers.”

Steve stood easily, despite the fact that he had had no more than five minutes of warning before literally being hauled out of his apartment and driven, blindfolded, to this office for “a matter of national security.” This wasn’t a call for the Secretary, personally. He was a beta, not uncommon for a politician, but one who wore cologne with an aggressive alpha scent. It wasn’t as blatant as those cheap “mating call” scents hawked in drug stores or over the internet, but a refined and subtle scent you wouldn’t notice consciously unless you were looking for it. That would give him an edge over a hot-headed agent.

No one on this floor had had so much as a whiff of heat around them. Not even the industrial-grade filters and scent blockers were going to eliminate every trace, not to Steve. So, perhaps another embedded field operative, like Clint? Or for another black-ops agent? There was no other reason to bring him here with this level of urgency and secrecy.

“Your clearance rating and successes with military prisoners of war is why we chose you and not someone in-house. Not to mention your performance with other agents under my jurisdiction.” He glanced briefly at the NDAs Steve had been required to sign before even stepping foot in the office, then locked eyes with Steve. “Some years back we acquired an asset from Russia through means I’m not going to get into. This asset was a prisoner of war, captured while injured, surgically modified and cyborged, brainwashed and conditioned to become an assassin, using fairly invasive and violent measures. The records we have indicate Russia had him for at least twenty years, if not longer, keeping him in cryosleep when he was not needed.

“We’re trying to make sure he is as healthy as he can be, considering his circumstances, but obviously recovery is a long, frustrating, uncertain road. Needless to say, it seems the Russians found the idea of an assassin in heat to be less than idea, so the asset has been on very heavy suppressants for at least twenty years.”

Through his growing sense of horror and outrage, Steve winced. Between the body’s rhythms being disrupted through cryosleep, and the necessary kinds of suppressants to work for that long of a time, the man had to be barely hanging on.

“The Russians didn’t know his real name, and the asset doesn’t either. He remembers nothing of his past, or at least nothing we’ve could tell definitively. He rarely talks, and there’s evidence of a long history of torture.”

“Sir, I--”

“I understand this would entire substantial risk to you. Even damaged, this man has the capacity for incredible violence, and has spent years being honed into a weapon. I have combat-trained alphas, but no one trained for such a violent heat. We don’t have many omegas in combat positions. We have people who want to help him, an entire staff who’s ready to tend to his health and get him better, but they can’t even get close to him in his current state, not until he gets balanced out. The suppressants the Russians were using were devastating to his system.” 

“Sir,” Steve still felt sick, but he wasn’t going to back down, not now. Not ever. “I’ll do everything I can to help him.”

“Good man.” Pierce put a small plastic box on the table, and Steve knew what it contained right away. “Nasal flare filters,” he said unnecessarily. 

Steve kept himself from pressing his lips together with distaste, or working his jaw to show he was biting his tongue. A few times he’d worked with people who were undercover, who’d felt it worth his life for him to know their scent. That, he could understand; it made his job harder, but sometimes it was necessary. However, if this “asset” was supposed to be getting better, why hide his scent from a professional?

“This is for his own protection, and yours, Mr. Rogers. There are still several places where he still has a price on his head. Having a civilian with that knowledge would be very troublesome.” 

Steve just nodded, wanting to get out of this uncomfortable interview and to the man who needed his help.

“The asset is extraordinarily sensitive right now, partially due to heat, partially due to what modifications were made to his system. So he will be goggled and masked with scent blockers for most of your session,” Pierce continued blithely.

Steve kept his jaw from dropping with difficulty.

“I understand there will need to be some scenting in order for him to make a full recovery.” Pierce dropped a pill and a pheromone ampule on the desk next to the nasal flares. Steve recognized them. Anyone in his line of work would.

“That’s illegal,” he said flatly.

“Rogers, I need him to associate comfort with his recovery team’s pheromones, not yours. You are a one-time thing, a significant one, but we don’t want him asking for you again, for your own safety.”

Steve picked up the pill with distaste. It was supposed to block his own pheromone output, while the ampule would hold someone else’s pheromones. The combination was used some therapies legitimately, normally memory recovery or occasional sexual therapy, but was also used illegally in sexual assault, fraudulent bonding, date rape, false heats, and other ugly cases.

“Sir, you know how important it is to use pheromones when bringing someone out of a long drought. But this- if you just needed a body…” Horrible as this was, what was Pierce’s reasoning for calling in Steve? The DoD had their own professional alphas on staff, and there would have been no need for extra NDAs or this very shady pheromone regimen. 

“As I said, he’s dangerous due to his conditioning as well as his amnesia. And he’s violent at times, very violent. My own alphas don’t have the experience with the same kind of cases you’ve dealt with. I have combat-trained alphas, I have alphas who’ve helped others through heat, but I don’t have a compatible one who’s done both. You did say you’d do anything to help, yes?”

Steve kept his expression neutral. “Right now, sir?”

Pierce nodded, and slid the tablet and ampule over. Steve popped the pill, took the nasal flares and ampule and stood. Right now, this was his show.

“Let’s get going. I’ll need an hour for the pill to kick in, and a hot shower to remove traces of my own scent. I brought scent-neutralizing soap and shampoo with me.” Without a backwards glance, Steve walked straight out of the room, leaving Pierce to follow in his wake.


	4. Chapter 4

Steve toweled off his hair roughly, seeing the two shadows of the agents guarding the door through the frosted glass. He wondered which one had been given his kill order. Pierce couldn’t afford to let anyone outside of his own loyal circle know about his pet project in the basement, and no matter Steve’s clearance, no matter how many NDAs he signed, nothing was going to convince Pierce his secret was safe until there was a bullet in Steve’s brain. Idly he wondered how Pierce would manufacture an excuse to get him away. Likely a faked urgent call from another embedded operative, and suddenly Steve would be needed again before he’d had time to make his call to Sam. Steve would have no choice but to take some back exit to a secure underground garage, right into the welcoming arms of his executioners.

Well. He’d see about that.

He took a small bottle from his bag and sprayed himself all over, popped in the nasal flare filters, and put on his robe, holding the pheromone ampule openly in his hand. Then he opened the door and submitted himself to the pat-down by his “guards.” Keeping his expression neutral was very hard, when all he wanted to do was snarl.

\--

The asset had been cleaned by the simple expedient of hosing him down. There was a mattress on the floor, and nothing else. His dark hair hung in damp tangles to his shoulders, obscuring the impersonal mask and goggles. He was nude, writhing in discomfort and pain, the metal arm flailing, the metallic sounds pinging off the walls.

“We can restrain him, if necessary,” Pierce said. “Power down the arm.”

Steve looked at the asset to avoid looking at Pierce. The man didn’t want a professional alpha. He wanted plausible deniability, a programmable fucking machine to get his secondhand prototype back up and functional. That Steve’s life was forfeit after he walked out the door was certain. No amount of NDAs would make Pierce feel safe about having Steve walking around with this knowledge. He’d seen the Asset’s body, could identify him, could identify Pierce as being in charge of the whole operation.

Steve had seen enough.

“That won’t be necessary,” Steve said, and walked through the door. It shut and locked behind him with an ominous clang.

The man’s head came up when Steve walked through the door, wary and alert even as the smell of him was thick enough to taste even through the nasal flare filters. He didn’t get up, just kept crouching on the mattress as if afraid to leave it. Steve fought down anger as he saw that despite the water from the Asset’s impromptu shower, the man was already drying from the fervency of his need as his body radiated heat. Despite that, his hole was untouched by slick, his cock barely half-hard, even as his body was flushed with need. There was such an air of neglect about him, of being left alone or denied over and over again, that Steve ached for him.

“Hey there, soldier,” Steve said, crouching down and trying a small smile, trying to give the Asset some friendliness. “I’m here to help you. My name’s Steve.”

“You don’t need to talk, just do your job,” Pierce’s voice cracked out over the intercom, most of his politician’s tone gone in favor of a military bark. Steve ignored him; if he wanted any less from Steve, he’d have to strap him to a table. 

The Asset’s impersonal mask and goggles didn’t let Steve see his expression, but his body had a posture of subservience and expectation, with the tension in his muscles that seemed to be braced for something bad. That only bore out everything Pierce had revealed about the Asset’s past, testifying to years of torture and abuse that left Steve feeling sick inside on the man’s behalf. He refused to let that show, and instead closed the gap between them until they were close enough to touch, kneeling down on the mattress and raising one hand slowly.

“May I touch you?” Steve asked softly. The Asset jerked back a bit, probably in surprise, and went still. A minute went by as his blank, masked and goggled face revealed nothing, and finally nodded. Steve gently touched the man’s shoulders, one fever-hot, the other cold, articulated metal, and slowly caressed down them. That made the Asset shiver, but also lean into the touch, a muffled moan coming from behind the mask. How long had it been since _anyone_ had treated him with a little kindness? Years? Decades?

Steve kept up the soft touches for a long time, and only gave encouraging nods when the Asset dared to shift his body to let different skin be touched. Steve listened and watched and learned, following the Asset’s desire as his long-frustrated heat ratcheted up another level. He leaned in closer as his hands descended from the Asset’s scarred back and shoulders to his muscular ass and thighs. Steve could see the Asset’s hole was hot and dry and tight, no doubt from congested slick glands from decades of repressed heats. God, what were they thinking? He could have _died_ from this.

Steve would do everything he could to fix it.

“May I taste you? Use my tongue?” Steve asked, and got a moan of desire as the Asset stilled, thighs trembling. Steve didn’t hesitate as the Asset knelt up and presented, gently parting the Asset’s cheeks, then leaning in and swiping his tongue wetly over his hole. There was sheer relief in the Asset’s voice as Steve licked and lapped, slowly opening up the tight pucker. Damned be to Pierce, who had been sternly trying to make other comments that Steve had ignored for the past fifteen minutes, Steve used the cover to dislodge the nasal flare filters, curling them in two of his fingers to hide them. He needed to be able to know what was going on. There was a tang of metal and blood, a faint hint of musk, but none of the rich, sweet heat that should have been filling the room. Steve redoubled his efforts, getting the Asset wet and slowly, agonizingly slowly loosening him, at least enough for a finger.

Steve left off just long enough to ask again, “May I put my fingers in you? I want to ease your glands open-.”

“Yes!”

It was an actual word, short, rough, and not terribly eloquent, but it was clear speech. What followed after Steve eased his first finger into the tight passage was more of a scream. But a scream of relief as Steve found and pressed down on the first tight, swollen gland. Slick suddenly trickled out, coating Steve’s whole hand, and soon Steve could put in another finger, then another, seeking out one gland after another and coaxing them into opening. The scent was incredible; Steve felt like he was drowning in cotton-candy sweetness with the underlying tang of metal and musk. It was making it hard for him to hold back, but he would rather die than cause this man another second of pain.

“More,” the Asset said, this time his voice very soft, the word less of a demand and more of a question. His head curved back to stare at Steve through the blank goggles and mask, and Steve just smiled at him beatifically. Obedient to the command, Steve folded his thumb and pushed in deeper, the Asset’s ass swallowing his hand. After so long a dry spell, and with so much slick needing to be expressed, this was the best thing for him medically and therapeutically, and apparently personally as well. The Asset tossed his head back and forth, sometimes dropping it to the mattress, his gyrations finally catching the goggles and dislodging them to drop on the floor. When he looked back at Steve in wonder, Steve could see his eyes were blue-gray, full of gratitude and relief. He was so beautiful he made Steve’s heart ache.

“You’re doing so well. You’re so good,” Steve said warmly, and the Asset looked almost incredulous.

“Mr. Rogers,” Pierce’s voice interrupted, loud enough this time so Steve couldn’t ignore it. “Before you get carried away, the pheromone ampule, now.”

Steve nodded once, but he wasn’t going to hop to. If Pierce had wanted to do this himself, he would have already.

He ran his free hand over his neck, then leaned forward to put more strength into his thrusts from his arm inside the Asset, slick gushing down even over his elbow as he eased the congestion in those long-dormant glands. He shifted a few more times as the Asset moaned in pained relief, bracing himself on his thigh, swiping his hand across his sweaty throat, brushing his hair back into place. He lifted his hand to show the window the flash of white plastic in his palm from the pheromone ampule. He flicked the catch on the Asset’s muzzle and closed his hand in a gesture that would crush the ampule. Then he brought his hand to the Asset’s nose and mouth letting him smell and taste the scent there.

At the same time, Steve whispered a few phrases of encouragement and praise into the Asset’s ear, then ended with a more audible, “May I, please?”

The Asset nodded frantically, and Steve eased his arm out. He shifted backwards enough to line himself up, then penetrated him in a single gorgeous slick slide home.

The Asset’s breath hitched, and tears were running down his face as Steve leaned down and breathed a question in his ear.

-

_Bucky was writhing against Steve, keeping his voice as quiet as he could. Their apartment walls were paper-thin, and they didn’t want to deal with neighbors banging on their doors, demanding they keep it down. It was all Steve could do to keep things together, holding onto Bucky with deceptive strength for his slight frame, draping himself over Bucky to get as much contact as he could. He could rarely get himself out of scrapes, but damn if Bucky could ever get out of Steve’s grasp. Especially now, when he would have had to have been dragged away to let go._

_“I want you to,” Bucky said, turning enough to give Steve an awkward kiss. He saw a shadow on Steve’s face, an echo of some old arguments, and smiled at him instead, putting every ounce of sincerity in his baby blues as he could. “No one else for me, not ever. Come on, Alpha!”_

_Confidence surged in Steve’s expression, and he leaned over Bucky’s neck, breath hot exactly where Bucky wanted it. “You want me, Bucky?”_

-

“Alpha, yes,” he gasped, an echo of his answer some seventy years ago, and Steve bit down hard over an old, nearly invisible bondmark on Bucky’s neck. He only had to shift his hips once before they were both gone, clenching together in orgasm, locked as one with pleasure. He could hear muffled shouts behind the glass, banging on the locked door, now mysteriously not responding to their key cards.

“Rogers!” Pierce thundered over the intercom, “Let him go immediately or it will go worse for you.” 

The lights went on in the observation room, revealing his face, as well as a group of STRIKE agents waiting for orders.

“No, _Secretary Pierce_ ,” Steve spat, holding Bucky gently, his tenderness belied by the gleaming metal arm now held at an angle to protect them both from attack. “I know my own mate.”

Pierce paled, but the STRIKE team next to him aimed their guns at Steve through the glass. Steve laughed out loud; the glass was bulletproof and shatterproof. They wouldn’t have dared place the Winter Soldier in here otherwise.

A hollow boom from above broke the standoff.

“What’s going on?” Pierce demanded.

A weedier man in the corner, probably one of the technicians, glanced at his phone and winced as he talked, eyes going wide. “Sir, the computers, someone found Zola, and the lab at-.”

Pierce cut the man off with a wave and stared fixedly at Steve, realization dawning rapidly. “No… You’re _him_.”

Steve smiled grimly, a smile at least seventy years old.

“You’re _Captain America?!_ ”

\---

_ Seventy years ago _

The Valkyrie hit the water like a crashing train, the impact throwing Steve out of his seat and onto the deck. He could hear water rushing in and he was cold, so cold. He wished he could have said something more to Peggy. She hadn’t deserved to hear him crash. Hear him die. He missed Bucky fiercely. He would see him soon, both of them having met their end in the cold. If they could have lived, maybe things would have been different. Maybe…

The plane settled lower, tilting slowly as she slid to her final resting place. Steve couldn’t move from the shock of the impact. He didn’t want to; he didn’t have anywhere else to go. The water rushed over him, so cold it stole his breath and numbed his mind. So cold he couldn’t even twitch. So cold he could finally rest.

\--

_ Some time later… _

_Scrape_ Soft but insistent. 

Blackness. _Scrape_. Louder.

A distant grunt. More scraping. Light and darkness. 

_SCRAPE!_ So loud. Cracking sounds. A nearly forgotten sensation.

Warmth. It _burned_

He burned with it, dying a hundred more times as heat and more scraping invaded his senses. Then lightness, weight he hadn’t even been aware of coming off of him. Pale light all around him, shining through his closed eyes. Awareness. His body, cold and soaked but alive. Barely warm water on his head. And finally, sight. He squinted as an impossibly bright glare retracted down to a single small flame, held within the globe of a lamp. A dark blur behind the flame took longer to resolve, finally revealing a man in heavy winter clothing back to him, tending a fireplace with a cheerful blaze burning in it. 

Steve stared at the flames for a long time, mesmerized by them, until he finally found the wherewithal to move his head examine his surroundings. The walls were rough wood, the ceiling relatively low, small windows showing white outside. The place looked like a single-roomed cabin, like Steve had seen in a few mountainous places in Europe, small, functional, and plain. 

There was a bed covered with an old quilt with blankets folded at the foot in the corner, a couple chests at the foot. A table and a couple of chairs, a healthy pile of wood near the single door, a basin on a smaller table with a tiny mirror above it, a short counter and sink, some cupboards, a stove with something savory on it bubbling away in a pot. A coffee pot enameled flecked blue and white was kept warm on the stove next to it. When Steve tried to crane his head just a little to get a better look at the silhouette next to the fireplace, he felt several _thuds_ as chunks of ice shed themselves from his body. 

He looked down at himself. He was in a simple canvas cot, uniform still on, shield still in his hand, lying in a puddle of cold water with ice chunks still stuck to parts of body.

 _Ice? How?_ his mind wondered. _Where?_

The man turned around at the noise from Steve’s movement. He was scruffy-looking, with heavy sideburns, thick stubble across his chin, his short brown hair in strange puffed peaks on his head. He was short, strong, and looked vaguely familiar.

“Hell of a homecoming, Captain,” he said. He was speaking English, his accent American. He looked Steve up and down, nodded, grunted, and walked over to the stove. He came back with a steaming cup of black coffee he pushed into Steve’s cold hand, the one not holding his shield. Steve couldn’t detect anything wrong with the coffee, no poisons or drugs, and drank down the hot, bitter liquid gratefully, trying to place, well, anything as the frost in his mind cleared out with every swallow. 

If this was an enemy, some member of HYDRA, this was certainly not their style. They didn’t go for the soft sell. And why did the man look like someone Steve knew? 

The man turned back to the stove and then came back with a bowl of thick stew. The smell awakened agonizing hunger in Steve, and he couldn’t smell a thing untoward in the delicious aroma. Steve still had his uniform on, still had his shield, wasn’t restrained, and the man wasn’t between him and the door, which only had a latch, not even a lock. Steve saw no tell-tale bulges of a concealed weapon, and there was no other weapon in sight. Besides, if the man had meant to kill him, he could have done that before bringing Steve in from the cold. For the moment, Steve felt safe enough to devour the stew, and the next four helpings the man dished up without comment. He followed that with another cup of coffee before finally sitting down backwards on one of the chairs and examining Steve minutely.

“Better,” the man grunted, nodding. “You know who you are?”

“Steve Rogers.”

“Good.” The man looked begrudgingly satisfied. 

“Who are you?” Steve asked.

“James Logan. My unit worked with your Commandos a few times.”

That explained the familiarity. Occasionally the Commandos had gotten support from any number of Allies and any number of military branches. James rattled off his Canadian infantry unit and rank, and Steve blinked, remembering them teaming up with the Commandos to mop up one of HYDRA’s bases. That brought a few things into focus, and a lot more questions.

“Where am I?”

“Canada. Northern Territory. About as north as you can get and still have trees. Not my land, but I’m friendly with a couple of the tribes up here, so they let me stay for a while every now and then.” Nothing in James’ face said he was lying, and the little Steve could see outside the window showed snow-covered tall pines as far as he could see. No mountains, no rocks, no icy plains that had been all he could see when he put the Valkyrie in the water-.

“How did you find me? What happened?” Steve demanded.

James leaned over to the counter and grabbed a newspaper to put in Steve’s hand. “It’s about three weeks out of date, I don’t think that’ll matter.”

Steve stared at it, ignoring the local headline in favor of the date. 

_January 15th, 1974_

Nearly thirty years. Damn.

James took the small mirror from above the basin and showed Steve his own face. He looked back at himself, his face unlined and familiar, the same as it was when he’d gone into the ice. Steve blinked as he realized that James couldn’t possibly be as old as he should have been.

“I guess putting that plane down in the ice, plus whatever juice they put into you, stopped you from aging. I found you in a chunk of ice on the coast, and you looked too damn alive. So I dragged you back here.”

“But you-.”

“I was born different. I heal quick, don’t age the same way. By the time you were born, I could’ve been your great-grandfather. I’ve been fightin’ in damn near every war that comes around. Born to battle, I guess.”

Steve sat back in his wet uniform on the cold, sodden cot, trying to process that. Trying to understand anything. James kept talking, even if by his terse descriptions it wasn’t his usual bent.

“Last war, in Vietnam, damn clusterfuck from the beginning. I ended up showing what I was when Victor did something stupid, both of us got shot for it. Didn’t take. Ended up in a ‘special unit.’ Commander was an asshole. Left ‘em. Came here to clear my head for a little while.”

Steve had so many more questions, many of which James likely either didn’t know or wouldn’t be inclined to answer, but he tried anyway. “Did… did we win? After I went down.”

“Yeah. Drop two atomic bombs on Japan to do it. Hitler committed suicide in a bunker. We found out he’d been shipping people to camps to be worked, tortured, or gassed to death. Millions of ‘em, Jews mostly, plus anyone else he didn’t like. I helped liberate one of those camps. Still gives me nightmares. Holocaust, they called it. But we won.” James fished in a drawer until he found a cigar, and held it at the stove until it lit, puffing on it briefly before adding a pointed, “Fucking hell.” 

He gave Steve more coffee and went to a chest, seemingly oblivious to Steve’s feeling of being hollowed out. God. He’d been so focused on HYDRA and had missed some of the other atrocities…

James came back with clothes and handed them to Steve. “Get dry. I’ll dig out some old newspapers, try to catch you up.”

“How were you sure I was alive?” Steve asked, not ready to face anything else yet.

“Smelled you under the ice.”

James walked off to dig through another chest. Steve wondered if he should be surprised. Or worried. But then he thought that anyone trying to pull wool over his eyes would probably try to come up with something less fantastical and more plausible. 

Maybe most of him was still just numb.

Steve peeled himself out of his cold, sodden uniform, pulling on the shirt, sweater, jeans, heavy socks and boots, the last a bit too snug. They looked like something he’d seen in movies with hunters up in the woods, maybe not so surprisingly. He laid his uniform over the back of a free chair to dry for now, and reveled in the dry warmth. He hadn’t realized how cold he had had been until he felt his body actually relaxing in the crackle from the flames. 

James came back, thumping a bundle of newspapers and magazines on the table, then shoved Steve aside. He used old towels to mop up the big puddle of water, tossed chunks of ice into a bucket, and nudged the wet cot closer to the fireplace to dry. He grunted in the direction of the last chair, and Steve sat, taking another swallow of warm coffee. James flung the ice out into the wintery landscape outside, then returned to the table, nodding at the papers.

“That’s the short version of your time under. I kept a few of the biggest events, enough to get you started. There were a couple smaller wars, lots of politicians, lots of good people trying to change things for the better, some who didn’t make it out, some music that got pretty big. One president got assassinated. Oh, we put a man on the moon.”

“What?!”

“Time Magazine. Front page.”

Steve could read incredibly fast when he wanted to, thanks to the serum, and he absorbed the last thirty years highlights in a few minutes as James rummaged in the clothes chest, bringing out a few more things. A blue military uniform straight out of a Civil War history book, another that could have belonged to Steve’s father, a few sets of dog tags, some medals and awards from wars he didn’t recognize.

“You pick what you carry with you,” James said, taking a brief look at his possessions before putting them back neatly. “It’s hell sometimes, and I’ve got my brother in the same damned boat.”

“Your brother-?”

“Victor’s got a bloodlust streak a mile wide. Vietnam let him take the leash off, and when we ended up in that special unit, it turned out to be a kill squad for some ambitious government prick. I was the first to go, but I know I wasn’t the last to leave. That kind of work suited Victor, not me.” James leaned over to pour himself his own cup of coffee, drinking it black and far too hot, his expression closed except for brief flashes of anger, pain, and loss. “You’ve got now. Take the time to figure out what you’re doing to do.”

“Do?”

“It’s a hard time for America. You think they need their Captain back?”

Steve was silent for a long time as he perused the papers and magazines with more care. He asked some clarifying questions and got more of James’ terse, truthful answers. James didn’t get much in the way of radio out here, but he did have a surprisingly compact record player with some of the new music that had gotten some people in such a twist. 

Steve was sort of in sympathy with them, but it wasn’t all bad. At least it was music, voices that weren’t their own, singing of love and rebellion and feeling mostly removed from the ice and blood and mud and pain Steve had known. 

Inside, Steve marveled at some of the advances, like television (in color!) that people could have in their homes. He quietly raged against the atrocities he hadn’t known about, hadn’t been there to try to stop or at least help. Felt shamed when he realized how many people had struggled and suffered just to be acknowledged as equals in America, and then what had been done to Dr. King… There was more, much more, and James left Steve to it. Steve couldn’t stay still for long, though, and soon joined James in cutting wood, hauling water, any of a dozen necessary tasks to keep the little cabin in shape.

That was also where he got to see James powers in action. Healing was only one of them. Steve had watched in slack-jawed surprise as James has smelled out, then hunted down a pair of rabbits for dinner one night. Not with a gun, but with bone claws that emerged from the backs of his hands, skewering them with lethal efficiency.

“I know what you’re thinking. I’m not an experiment. Told you, I was born like this. My brother too, though he’s got actual claws on his fingers. We’re not the only ones.”

“I wonder…” Steve said, once he’d managed to master his surprise. “If someone born different was where Dr. Erskine got his ideas for the serum.”

“Maybe. Not my area. Don’t really want to be a science experiment.” 

Steve caught a tiny smirk on James’ lips, and laughed. It had been nearly thirty years since he’d last done that.

“So, what now?”

Steve considered the mental list he’d made, one that if it had been paper, would have been erased, scratched through, and redone so many times there would have been holes in it.

“I still have friends. They’re alive, I hope.”

James made a grunt of agreement as he gutted and skinned the rabbits, then got them ready to go into tonight’s stew. “And?”

Steve looked back at the cabin, where he knew his uniform and shield were sitting neatly on the cot by James’ fireplace. “Maybe they can help.”

James gathered up the rabbits and both of them went inside. “Help with what? You need them to tell you what to do?”

Steve didn’t let himself bristle. James was prickly, far more so than Bucky ever had been.

“They’re my friends,” he said simply.

James looked at him sideways. “And the fact you look the same?”

“They know about the serum.”

“Your funeral,” James said with a shrug, sweeping the rest of the ingredients he’s prepared into a pot and turning on the stove.

“No, they already had that.” Steve waggled a copy of the New York Times with his name at the top. “It was pretty fancy.”

James actually gave a dry laugh at that. He cracked open a window and passed Steve a beer that had been cooling in a snowdrift. “If you aren’t taking up that shield again right away, what’re you gonna do?”

Steve idly flipped through the papers before setting them back down, all thirty years’ worth of change. “I’ve got some ideas.”

Another grunt. “We’re going tomorrow. ‘Bout time I get out of here too. I’ll get you to the border. I’m done here for now.”

“What is this place, to you?”

“Where I hide until they forget about me. It’s not too hard.” James walked out to get more wood, and Steve sipped his beer, knowing James didn’t want help, he probably wanted to be alone. A moment later, something flew through the air, and Steve caught it reflexively. It was a bar of light blue soap, a little nicer than he’d had in the Army.

“I’m stoking up the bathhouse. Wash off the alpha scent before you hit the border.”

Or he’d be a walking problem. Steve knew the drill.

Tomorrow then, he was going home tomorrow.

\--

_Three days ago_

Steve reflected it was a damn good idea that curiosity and planning had done a lot to get these five people in the same room. It would have taken the last of his resources and exposed him more than he’d like to have gotten everyone here, if a certain one-eyed, very sharp director of SHIELD hadn’t employed the biggest Captain America fanboy on the entire planet. That… had loosened up some resources.

It had not been unexpected that Director Fury already had the five people he’d been looking for already under observation. Somebody was likely going to gather together people like him, either to keep an eye on them, or get them to fight on their side. Luckily, this time, Fury was on the side of the angels. Steve had been very worried about the opposite being the case.

It turned out that Fury had not only had those five special people under observation, he’d already brought them together to fight the fights that “no one else could.” And when he’d heard why Steve wanted to talk to them, he’d only nodded.

“You’re the only one who’s had experience with these assholes, Captain. So you get first crack at HYDRA. I’ll get the Avengers together. You’ll have to convince them of what’s going on yourself.” That Fury was testing him, Steve had no doubt. But he wouldn’t back down. He hadn’t ever been able to back down.

When all five Avengers had walked in to find their one-time alpha partner in a combat-ready red-white-and-blue uniform, Steve had had a lot of explaining to do. None of it quite softened the blow of the knowledge that the Steve Rogers look-a-like professional alpha was actually nearly a hundred years old, the original Captain America, and he had a mission for them. Skepticism was healthy and warranted, even with Nick Fury’s blessing on this operation.

For better or for worse, it was time for Steve to put all his cards on the table if he wanted to be believed. 

“Just like that?” Clint asked, eyes narrowed at the story he’d just been spun, from the Valkyrie’s crash to Steve waking up in Canada.

“Gabe was living in Detroit, Dum-Dum in Columbus, Jim in Sacramento. We’d exchanged addresses during the war, and I still remembered them. I tracked them down, and they got ahold of Peggy.” Steve smiled, bittersweet. “She had a husband and grandkids, and gave me the dressing down of a lifetime. Then kissed me on the cheek and we started laughing and-.” He stopped, waving the rest of the reunion away. “It was too dangerous to come back as Captain America. Vietnam wasn’t over yet, and we didn’t know what they might try to use me for. So I helped Peggy with whatever she needed, usually undercover. 

“HYDRA’s ideals weren’t gone. I’d helped take down their bases, but they had their sympathizers everywhere. We tried to find out where they’d gone.”

“How’d you avoid detection?” Natasha asked.

“Hair dye and a beard, up until 2005. Then I took my own name again, just altering my birth year.”

“Hair dye and a beard is all it takes to fool the world?”

“Well, no one was looking for me,” Steve pointed out.

“Dad was,” Tony said, his voice stiff.

Steve coughed a little, and Tony looked furious for a moment before sighing.

“Are you _kidding me?_ ”

\--

“It’s really you.” She reached out, touching his face with hands still somewhat callused and strong, though now more wrinkled with age. Steve bent down as she gave him a kiss on the cheek, all too aware of Daniel’s eyes on him from his seat on the opposite sofa. They weren’t accusing or jealous, but Steve had been out of the picture for thirty years. They’d had more than his remembered lifetime to become a solid couple, to love each other the way he wished he’d gotten a chance to. He smiled down at her and took her hands in his, kissing her forehead before letting her go.

“How?”

“I was frozen. The ice – I didn’t die, it just put me in suspended animation, I think it’s called. Someone found me-.”

“Who?” And there, the suspicion and fierceness in her voice and expression, that was the Peggy who must have fought her way through every short-sighted and small-minded idiot who’d ever tried to get her way at SSR. SHIELD now.

“Someone who has as much trouble dying as I do. I’m not going to name names. I’ll say he’s a friend, he knows what it’s like to be different, and he won’t tell a damn soul about me.”

“What are you going to do, Steve?” she asked. Behind her question, Steve knew she already had a dozen possible plans laid out, but she was waiting to see what he’d say. She was the old hand at this now, but she still respected him.

“I need some way to find what we missed. You told me old HYDRA members are out there, and I have to find where they’ve hidden themselves. And if they’re in plain sight, then I can’t hide forever. And I can’t do this alone. Going in guns blazing won’t work.”

“Good. I was afraid you’d try to punch your way to the truth.”

“That worked pretty well, most of the time.”

She smiled with a hint of sadness, and Steve looked away. _Bucky._ Daniel held her hands, rubbing a thumb over hers in an old gesture of commiseration. 

“More practically,” she said, turning brisk, “is the fact that you need a new identity, and you’re going to need money. Daniel and I are well enough off, but not enough to bankroll finding HYDRA’s sympathizers on our own, or even just on your own. Also, I have a pesky feeling that you won’t age gracefully like the rest of us, which means you’re going to need a new identity every ten years or so until you decide to take up your real identity again.”

Steve opened his mouth and shut it again. Well. He hadn’t even considered that. Strange, after fighting so long to be accepted as who he was, and now he had to hide.

“I’m going to call Howard. He took your death hard, Steve. To know that you’re alive… I think it might help. He got married, you know. He has a son, seven years old. Tony.”

“Howard? Married? And _kids?_ ” Steve said, both surprised and delighted. 

“He tries. Not as hard as other things, but he tries. To know he didn’t fail with you… I think that might help.”

\---

_HYDRA Base, now_

“I don’t die so easily,” Steve said, glaring at Pierce.

“We’ll see.” More crashes and bangs from up above, more calls for help over other PA systems, and Pierce took a few moments to issues a rapid-fire series of orders with the sound to the Asset’s room turned off. Steve spent the precious time whispering encouragements and reassurances in Bucky’s ear, knowing that despite the rebonding, there was still so much that was confusing and painful in Bucky’s mind. 

“It’s me, Steve. I came back. I swear I won’t let them get you again.” Bucky shuddered and relaxed, trusting on a level of instinct, even if his tortured brain didn’t have many words while still in the throes of heat. 

“ _Alpha_. Mine?”

“Yet, yours.”

“Steve.”

He squeezed his hand. “Yes, I’m here now.”

“They’ll make me hurt you!” he said, eyes wild with panic.

“No.” Steve gave him a shallow thrust against their knotted tie, and Bucky moaned, pushing back. “I can do this all day.”

A dry, rusty laugh exploded out of Bucky’s throat as the lights came back up in the observation room. Pierce was holding a red book with a black star on the cover, and Bucky snarled at the sight of it.

Slowly, with great care, Pierce began to speak random-sounding Russian words, words that made Bucky go rigid with shock and mental pain. Steve interjected his own, covering’s Bucky’s ears, telling him how strong, how loved, how beautiful he was. Loudly. Bucky kept his grip on Steve, grounding himself in his mate’s touch.

Then the ceiling caved in.

\--

_Three days earlier_

“Wait, wait,” Tony said, putting his hands out palm first to slow the conversation down. “Upon finding out you were alive, you, Steve Rogers, whom my Dad devoted way too many hours of his life searching for, and now I know that half of that was _feigned_ , Dad and you decided that the best way to fight for truth, justice, and the American way was with your knotted dick?”

“Sounds about right, actually,” Natasha muttered, and Tony shot her a glare.

“The other ways to get in were rank-and-file field operative, politician, or military personnel. And I was going to age out of my credentials before I ever could get a face-to-face with anyone higher up at SHIELD by any of those routes. Besides, omegas had it way worse than even me growing up. In some ways, they still do. You’ve got more laws, but a lot of attitudes haven’t changed, even if it isn’t so blatant anymore. I could help people who needed it. I could help anyone I wanted,” Steve said, sounding a little wistful at the last.

Natasha looked at Steve for a long moment, then looked back over at Clint. He nodded thoughtfully. “If we cross-reference your work location with upticks in mysterious hooded figures rescuing people from bad situations, there’s going to be a very suspiciously high correlation, isn’t there?” Natasha asked. Steve nodded without hesitation. 

“I still don’t like bullies. But the job was more than that. I’m very good.”

“I say without fear of contradiction and with fond memories of lovely orgasms that we won’t argue with you on that count,” Tony said. His skepticism had gone down another half-notch. He eyed the shield Steve had flat on the desk, and reached out to touch it. Nothing felt like vibranium; the peculiar stillness of the metal was undeniable. Tony nodded sharply for Steve to go on.

“I was good enough to get the kind of money I needed to make a background able to withstand a SHIELD backstop investigation. Enough to make me look legitimate to any HYDRA operative. Enough to get me that interview with Pierce.” 

“The Secretary of Defense is a HYDRA operative?” Natasha didn’t sound surprised, but then again she was a past master of sounding like whatever was best at the time.

“As one of its heads. I… specialized in military personnel in IPA. I kept my mouth shut, but my ears open, and I’m a very good listener. Once SHIELD started employing me more and more, I heard a lot. HYDRA doesn’t seem to think much of omegas, but they had some in key positions, and people under that kind of pressure didn’t dare have their heats anywhere near a base. I was on a word-of-mouth safe list.”

\---

_ A few years’ earlier _

\--“All that damn work to get into flight school, and all I got for it was to be surrounded by a bunch of leering meat-heads while stuck up in a floating platform with nowhere to hide. I didn’t even want to do it, but they needed one more person in case of emergencies and I was the best candidate.”

She huffed a little, and Steve went through his usual gentling routine to try to keep everything calm while they were tied. 

“Sorry about your assignment,” he said. Curious that SHIELD would put someone on a Helicarrier who didn’t want to be there. Their psychological screening process was very thorough, not only to make sure people would want to do their assignments, but would be able to work well with the people around them. SHIELD was selective enough with its candidates that it saw no need to have people distracted by interpersonal conflicts. A little petty office politicking was one thing. A hostile work environment when everyone was either a trained killer or some variety of technical genius was another. A little adjustment to a new team mix was expected, but Warrens sounded like she had been biting her tongue for a long, long time.

“If it wasn’t so important, I would have told them where to stick it, but you don’t say no to the Sec-.” She jammed her mouth shut, her body going rigid, but Steve never changed his hold.

“Bosses. Can’t live with ‘em, illegal to kill ‘em,” he said, and Warrens laughed, relaxing again. With the relaxation came more complaints; she was seemingly just happy to have a captive audience. Steve just listened. And remembered.

\--

_Three days ago…_

“And why us?” Bruce asked. He tried to keep his expression neutral. “Did you know about us before you-?”

“Bruce, I was in Brazil following up on a lead, but I ran into you by accident, I swear. But after I realized I was being tailed after I had been with you, I made sure they saw me as someone to be trusted. Because I needed to find people to believe me…” Steve took a deep breath and looked right at Tony. “Because on December 16th, 1991, Howard and Maria Stark were killed. By HYDRA.”

Tony lost all color in his face, his hand gripping the arm of his chair until his knuckles were white. “Did they sabotage their car?”

“That would have been too easy.” Steve picked up his phone beside him and punched in a code. “I already told you I was working with Howard.” His glance at Tony, full of remorse, stopped some of the recriminations that Tony probably had on the tip of his tongue. “We had hoped to make more of the super-soldier serum and find good people who would use it wisely and well. Howard had spent years on the project, a lot of it convincing me and Peggy that we _could_ find good people. He finished it, and was bringing it to me secretly. Somehow HYDRA had been spying on him.”

\--

_December 16th, 1991_

“Steve?” her voice sounded sleepy and groggy.

“Peggy. Howard’s not here yet. He should have been here twenty minutes ago.”

A pause, and then, “I haven’t had any other calls.”

“I’m going after him.”

“Be careful, please.”

Steve backtracked the route on his motorcycle, heart in his throat when he smelled the tang of gasoline, oil, and fresh blood on the wind. This was the most isolated part of the route, and Steve and Howard had picked it because of that very reason, hoping to avoid as many people as possible. Under a streetlight, Steve found them. The car was crashed, but not bad enough to have staved in Howard’s skull, or crushed Maria’s throat. Tony… god, Tony was an orphan.

Steve held onto the side of the car as tears burned down his face. It was a long time before he could look in the trunk, but as he’d expected, it was empty. This was targeted. Someone had found out what Howard had been up to. Trying to think, Steve smelled the faintest whiff of gunpowder. The Starks hadn’t been shot. Steve’s head went up, and he searched around carefully. There was no brass from the shot, but up on the pole, there was a fresh scar from a detached camera mount.

Part of the reason Howard and Steve had chosen this route was because of the storage facility just off of the road, which included a good security system. The assassin had destroyed the camera, but maybe, just maybe…

Steve found the storage office undisturbed, except for the missing security tape. He smiled grimly; he had things in storage at this facility, as a convenient depot between Howard’s house and places he was investigating. And he knew the owner had a back-up in case one of the VCRs ate the tape. He kept it in a backless old filing cabinet, because he hadn’t wanted to clutter up another desk. The copy was _still there_. The image was poor, but what it showed was all too clear. Steve didn’t remember much of the trip back home.

Bucky was alive. And being used by HYDRA. It couldn’t be anyone else.

\--

_Three days ago…_

Steve handed the phone to Tony, the video file ready to play. Tony took it off into a corner and watched it. Everyone waited an uncomfortably long time for Tony to come back, stiff-legged, eyes dry, cuffs damp.

“Who-,” Tony started angrily.

“The person they used as their weapon is Bucky Barnes,” Steve said flatly. “And the person who signed off on the assassination order was Alexander Pierce.”

“Jesus,” Barton said softly. 

“Barnes is dead,” Natasha said.

“Captured, cyborged, brainwashed, tortured, and popped in and out of cryosleep. The Winter Soldier, the Fist of HYDRA,” Steve said, repressed sorrow and rage under his even tone. He showed a capture from the video in a side-by-side comparison to an old picture of Bucky. Aside from the long hair and severe lack of animation in his face, they were identical. “I got my hands on one of his former ‘handlers’ and asked some questions. They’ve been using him as an assassination tool for decades.”

“Why tell us this? Tony needed to know, but do you have proof positive against Pierce? What about this handler?” Natasha asked. Clint looked only a little uncomfortable, but he got why Natasha was asking. They worked best in the shadows, and for all of what Steve had claimed about Secretary Pierce, the man mostly lived in the spotlight.

“The handler, Karpov, is in a very uncomfortable but safe jail cell in Germany. But Pierce? He’s going to give me evidence of his own free will in three days,” Steve said, and every head came up in surprise. “I have it on good authority that I’ll be getting an IPA meeting with someone very high in the DoD, which is double-talk for the SecDef, for a, and I quote, ‘difficult asset.’ I’m not in SHIELD, so I’m expendable once I fix their problem. HYDRA never had many omegas in combat positions, and from what Karpov said, the ‘Asset’ was transferred to full American control only a few years ago. That’s the same time they lost one of their key scientists to old age. Bucky’s an omega. Things get lost in transport, including records and drugs.

“When they take me to him, that will be proof positive of how far HYDRA goes. And you will be able to stop them when they’re exposed.”

“Would they retaliate in public?” Bruce asked, looking worried.

“They’ll have to, against all of you, and soon,” Steve said. “Fury put you all in this Avengers Initiative, didn’t he? Against the Secretary’s advice. He knows who you are and what you can do. He wants his Winter Soldier back to lead the attack when HYDRA makes their move. All of you will have to be the first to fall; they can’t have you messing up their plans.”

Bruce looked stricken, because he knew how that would probably turn out for everyone. Tony looked furious, ready to spit nails in anger. And Thor, he just looked very, very ready. All of this talk of Earth politics had little to nothing to do with him, but Natasha must have given him a short summary of HYDRA’s greatest hits. And for a man who wanted to help protect Earth, well, making sure HYDRA never gained control was essential.

“Are you _absolutely positive_ this Winter Soldier is Barnes?” Clint asked.

“I’m sure enough to stake my life on it.”

“And ours,” Natasha said pointedly. “If our first public debut is overthrowing SHIELD because of a HYDRA infiltration and we’re either wrong or have no proof, we are going to go down in history as America’s worst terrorists.”

“Bucky is my bondmate,” Steve said, clenching his hands together. Tony looked up out of his haze of grief and anger, briefly shaking his self-focus. “I can reach him. I can save him and take away their weapon at the same time. And if I do that, you’ll have all the proof you need.”

“That’s why you took up your name again, wasn’t it?” Tony asked.

“I’d been a spy, an agent, a vigilante. I’d freelanced as an alpha a few times, but when Howard died…” He paused, and Tony could see that his father’s death still hurt. Steve had known his dad a lot better than he had, in some ways. A part of Tony resented that, and probably always would. But there were other things to life besides resentment. “When Howard died, Peggy was retired, Daniel had died some years before, and since Howard had been funding our search on the sly, the money dried up. Jarvis couldn’t get access to those accounts without alerting Stane, and then he passed away a few years later. I freelanced as an alpha in Canada, Mexico, and a lot of Europe for over ten years, trying to stick to the plan.

“Then you were shot,” Steve said, looking at Natasha. She raised her eyebrows, and he clarified. “Trying to get the scientist out of Iran, when he was killed by the Winter Soldier. I had enough contacts to hear about it, decent rumors at least. That was my second sighting. This was no longer just HYDRA sympathizers and people with personal agendas, this meant something much more coordinated; the organization I thought I died to try to stop. I wormed my way into eastern Europe, and eventually found an ex-Soviet operative with Hydra ties, Karpov. He knew HYDRA had grown inside SHIELD. And he told me they’d moved the Winter Soldier to America after the fall of the Berlin Wall.”

“Wither thou goest, love,” Bruce said softly.

“Yeah,” Steve said. “I needed to be high in SHIELD’s trust. So I used my last, best set of papers, and became myself again, mostly.”

“And what, worked your way up the ranks?” Tony said with a dangerous amount of blandness. Steve faced Tony squarely, and spoke without flinching.

“HYDRA was going to target anyone capable of taking them out, anyone with any ties to SHIELD whom they couldn’t break. I found Bruce purely as a fluke, I’ll admit, but when I realized who Natasha was, I knew I’d gotten my chance. I wanted to help, and I wanted you to know you could trust me. At least that was what I hoped. Some of the people I had as clients were HYDRA’s operatives within SHIELD. People spill secrets in heat. I listened. That’s how I found out about Pierce.

“But when I found all of you…” Steve sighed, not a sign of exasperation or weariness, but of relief. “There were so many people I’d met who I was pretty certain were enemies. You were the first who might be allies. Or… friends.”

Steve could tell, they got it. That, one way or another, to one degree or another, they forgave him his deception. Because for all Steve’s careful, long-term planning to protect people from HYDRA, he’d been going at it with little support or backup. Suddenly he had real hope, and help, and a chance of not only fulfilling a mission, not only saving a part of his past, but of finding people to stand by once again. 

“What do we do now, that we may capture all of these foes in a single sweep?” Thor asked, stepping forward to clasp him on the shoulder in a warrior’s greeting. The scowl on his face didn’t bode well for HYDRA; there was no doubt that if Jane Foster wasn’t able to give them information they wanted on her space-bending wormholes or any other potentially dangerous knoweldge, they wouldn’t have any trouble crossing her off, and Thor with her. None of them were fighting just for themselves, but also for anyone even remotely attached to them.

“It means we have two days to plan how to take down HYDRA and get that sonofabitch Pierce,” Tony said tightly.

“Believe me, I wanted to go after him then and there when I realized what they’d done. Peggy talked me down. The only evidence I had of HYDRA was Bucky, and all the tape did was implicate Bucky alone as an assassin. No one else would believe some defunct World War II Nazi death cult was still around.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tony asked, his voice tight. “Why didn’t _she_ tell me?”

“I wish we would have. Peggy wanted to spare you being targeted. If you’d known, they would have gone after you. And I didn’t know if I could protect you.”

“Why not-.” Tony cut himself off and shook his head.

Steve answered the unfinished question. “You weren’t Iron Man until after I met you. I didn’t want to lose you too… I- I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.

Tony walked away and faced the door for a minute. Then walked back, eyes wiped dry.

“You know how to take them down for good?”

“Fury’s on our side. Capture Pierce, and we can use him to unlock the files on everything HYDRA was doing inside SHIELD.” He eyed Natasha as he spoke, and she smiled smugly. 

“I want Pierce,” Tony said, in a tone that booked no argument.

“Leave enough eye, fingerprint, and retina to work,” Natasha reminded him.

\--

_Now_

The STRIKE team left to protect Pierce were no fools; they started shooting immediately, but hit something metallic. Then the STRIKE members started going down, hit with arrows or a sneak attack in the dim light. Out of the gloom emerged the glow of the arc reactor in the chest plate of Iron Man. Pierce’s face went bloodless, and the book dropped from his fingers.

“Don’t move,” Tony said, his voice metallic behind his faceplate, and as uncompromising. “Natasha?”

She gave a final love-tap to one of her victims on the floor, and stepped up to press a retinal scanner to Pierce’s eye. Steve’s body finally let go of Bucky, and he disengaged enough so they could stand. Barton opened the door to Bucky’s room, tossing them bundles of clothing, armor, and weapons. 

“How did you turn him?” Pierce asked, incredulous that Steve Rogers had somehow managed to suborn his prize asset while _naked_. _“How?”_

\--

_Earlier_

Steve sat in the locker room, toweling off. The scent-blocker pill had run its course and been metabolized out of his system in ten minutes. Luckily he had brought a scent-blocking spray that would last until he got to the omega’s room, a common enough toiletry for a professional alpha who didn’t want to advertise. The guards outside the door were holding the ampule, but Steve had another concealed in his palm, this one full of plain water.

He had swapped his fake for the real one en-route, dropping the real one under the mattress. When he’d held up his hand to the window, all Pierce had seen was a flash of white plastic. He hadn’t even registered Steve running his hand over his most-scented areas of his body, and that was what he had let Bucky scent. Those lessons from Vegas had come in handy after all.

\--

_Now_

“You boys want to put on some clothes if you want to fight evil today?” Clint asked.

Bucky arrayed himself in the reinforced, bulletproof leather of the Winter Soldier, armed to the teeth, and covered Steve’s back in easy coordination as they moved out. He didn’t move like Steve remembered him, now more purposeful, more fluid, balanced on a hair trigger of violence, but they shadowed each other as well as they ever had. It would take some getting used to, but Steve felt some part of his heart that had been frozen since his fall finally thawing. 

“Nat and Tony are taking down the computer system; it went berserk when they cracked Pierce’s files. Thor and Bruce are managing the dumbfucks who tried to come in with heavy artillery while getting the rest of the civvies out. We’ve got to go after the leaders now, before they scatter.”

“We’re coming!” Steve said firmly.

“Thought you already did,” Clint said, and Bucky laughed, a short rusty thing, but a laugh, a real one. Steve wondered what Sam and Darcy would make of Bucky, and how exactly they were going to take Steve’s little misdirection on his birth year. Hopefully well enough that he’d still have an apartment to take Bucky home to.

Steve knew it would take a long time for Bucky to feel like his own person again, maybe another lifetime. And to work with the Avengers would take its own kind of persuasion. But they would do it. In time.

He’d been on a much longer journey.

But he didn’t have to do it alone anymore. 

Side by side with Bucky, Steve Rogers loped down the corridor to join the rest of the Avengers.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[ART] How Can You Go On With Such Conviction?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12642789) by [THE_mlb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/THE_mlb/pseuds/THE_mlb)




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